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Volume XXV October, 1927
Number 4
The Princeton
Theological
Review
CONTENTS
The Integrity of the Lucan Narrative of the Annunciation 529
J. Gresham Machen
Echoes of the Covenant with David 587
James Oscar Boyd
Popular Protest and Revolt against Papal Finance in
England from 1226 to 1258 610
Oscar A. Marti
The Sign of the Prophet Jonah and its Modern Confir¬
mations 630
Ambrose John Wilson
Is Christianity Responsible for China’s Troubles? 643
Courtenay Hughes Fenn
Reviews of Recent Literature 664
Survey of Periodical Literature 690
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1927
The Princeton Theological Review
EDITED FOR
THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
BY
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Each author is solely responsible for the views expressed in his article
Notice of discontinuance must be sent to the Publishers ; otherwise subscriptions will be continued
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Entered as Second Class Mail Matter at Princeton, N. J.
BOOKS REVIEWED
Bishop, W. S., The Theology of Personality . 683
De Korne, J. C., Chinese Altars to the Unknown God . 687
Gaedner-Smith, P., The Narratives of the Resurrection — A Crit¬
ical Study . 667
Hamilton, F. E., The Basis of Christian Faith . 664
Hickman, F. S., Introduction to the Psychology of Religion . 665
Martindale, C. O., What It Means to Be Christian . 682
Merrifield, F., Modern Religious Verse and Prose. An Anthology 68 7
Ramsay, W. M., Asianic Elements in Greek Civilisation . 671
Stebbins, G. G, George C. Stebbins: Reminiscences and Gospel
Hymn Stories . 685
The Sacred Scriptures, Concordant Version . 680
Wardle, W. L., Israel and Babylon . 674
Williams, W. W., and Millis, B. V. R., eds., Select Treatises of
S. Bernard of Clairvaux . 683
Copyright 1917, by Princeton University Press
The Princeton
Theological Review
OCTOBER 1927
THE INTEGRITY OF THE LUCAN NARRATIVE
OF THE ANNUNCIATION1
The Lucan narrative of the birth and infancy in Lk. i. 5-
ii. 52 is strikingly Jewish and Palestinian both in form and
in content.2 That narrative contains an attestation of the
virgin birth of Christ. But according to the prevailing view
among those who deny the historicity of the virgin birth, the
idea of the virgin birth was derived from pagan sources. If
so, the question becomes acute how such a pagan idea could
have found a place just in the most strikingly Jewish and
Palestinian narrative in the whole New Testament.
This question has been answered by many modern scholars
by a theory of interpolation. It is perfectly true, they say,
that Lk. i. 5-ii. 52 is of Palestinian origin ; and it is perfectly
true that an attestation of the virgin birth now stands in
that narrative; but, they say, that attestation of the virgin
birth formed no original part of the narrative, but came
into it by interpolation.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this
question; indeed we may fairly say that if the interpolation
theory is incorrect the most prominent modern reconstruc¬
tion proposed in opposition to the historicity of the virgin
birth falls to the ground. The view as to the origin of the
idea of the virgin birth which has been most widely held by
those modern historians who deny the fact of the virgin
birth stands or falls with the interpolation theory.
1 This article contains part of the manuscript form of the lectures on
the Thomas Smyth Foundation which the author delivered at Columbia
Theological Seminary in the spring of 1927.
2 Compare “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke” and “The First
Two Chapters of Luke” in this Review, x, 1912, pp. 1-38, 212-277.
530
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
The interpolation theory3 has been held in various forms.
A classification of these various forms is possible from two
points of view.
The first point of view concerns the sense in which the
supposed interpolation is to be called an interpolation. A
three-fold division is here possible. In the first place, the
interpolation may be regarded as an interpolation into the
completed Gospel — a gloss introduced into the Third Gospel
at some point in the manuscript transmission. In the second
place, the interpolation may be regarded as an interpolation
made by the author of the Gospel himself into a Jewish
Christian source which elsewhere he is following closely. In
this case the words attesting the virgin birth would be an
original part of the Gospel, but would not belong to the un¬
derlying Jewish Christian narrative. In the third place, the in¬
terpolation may be regarded as an interpolation made by the
author himself, not into a source but into the completed
Gospel — that is, the author first finished the Gospel without
including the virgin birth, and then inserted the virgin birth
as an afterthought. This third possibility has been suggested
— for the first time so far as we know — by Vincent Taylor,
the author of the latest important monograph on the sub¬
ject.4
The second point of view from which a classification is
possible concerns the extent of the supposed interpolation.
Whether the interpolation is to be regarded as an interpola¬
tion into the completed Gospel by a scribe, or into the source
by the author of the Gospel, or into the completed Gospel by
the author of the Gospel, how much is to be regarded as
interpolated ?
With regard to this latter question, there have been vari¬
ous opinions. The earliest and probably still the commonest
view is that the interpolation embraces verses 34 and 35 of
the first chapter. That view received its first systematic
3 Compare “The New Testament Account of the Birth of Jesus,” in
this Review, iv, 1906, pp. 50-61.
4 Vincent Taylor, The Historical Evidence for the Virgin Birth, 1920.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION
531
grounding from Hillmann in 1891. 5 6 It has since then been
advocated by Usener, Harnack, Zimmermann, Schmiedel,
Pfleiderer, Conybeare and others. A second view was sug¬
gested by Kattenbusch8 and defended by Weinel.7 It is to the
effect that only the words, “seeing I know not a man”8 in Lk.
i. 34, 35, are to be eliminated. A third view includes verses
36 and 37 with verses 34 and 35 in the supposed interpola¬
tion.80
With regard to the former classification — that is, the clas¬
sification according to the sense in which the supposed inter¬
polation is to be taken as an interpolation — it may be noticed
at the start that the first view, which regards the interpolation
as an interpolation made by a scribe into the completed Gos¬
pel, is opposed by the weight of manuscript attestation. There
is really no external evidence worthy the name for the view
that Lk. i. 34, 35 or any part of it is an interpolation. Manu¬
script b of the Old Latin Version, it is true, does substitute
verse 38 for verse 34, and then omits verse 38 from its proper
place. But that may either have been a mere blunder in trans¬
mission, especially since the two verses begin with the same
words, “And Mary said”9; or else may be due to the desire
of a scribe to save Mary from the appearance of unbelief
which might be produced by her question in verse 34. 10 At
any rate the reading of this manuscript is entirely isolated;
as it stands, it produces nonsense, since it represents the angel
5 Hillmann, “Die Kindheitsgesohichte Jesu nach Lucas,” in Jahrbiicher
fiir protestantische Theologie, xvii, 1891, pp. 213-231.
6 Das Apostolische Symbol, ii, 1900, pp. 621 f., 666-668 (Anm. 300).
7 “Die Auslegung des Apostolischen Bekenntnisses von F. Kattenbusch
und die neutestamentliche Forschung,” in Zeitschrift fiir die neutesta-
mentliche Wissenschaft, ii, 1901, pp. 37-39.
Njrtl (LvSpa ov yiviixrKoi.
80 Clemen ( Religionsgeschichtliche Erklarung des Neuen Testaments ,
2te Aufl., 1924, p. 1 16) includes in the supposed interpolation even verse
38 as well as verses 36 and 37.
9 So A. C. Headlam, in a letter entitled, “The ‘Protevangelium’ and
the Virgin Birth,” in The Guardian, for March 25, 1903, p. 432.
10 So, apparently, Zahn, in loc. See also especially Allen, “Birth of
Christ in the New Testament,” in The Interpreter, i, 1905, pp. 116-118,
who discusses the reading of b with some fulness.
532
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
as continuing to speak (verses 35-37) after he has already-
departed; and certainly it cannot lay the slightest claim
either to be itself, or to enable us to reconstruct, the true
text. As for the testimony of John of Damascus in the eighth
century to the omission of the phrase, “seeing I know not a
man,” in some Greek codices, that is clearly too late to be of
importance.11
Thus the unanimity of manuscript evidence for the inclu¬
sion of Lk. i. 34, 35 is practically unbroken. And it is dif¬
ficult to see how such unanimity could have arisen if the
verses were interpolated in the course of the transmission.
In view of the many widely divergent lines of transmission
in which the text of the Gospel has come down to us, it
would be surprising in the extreme if the true reading should
in this passage have nowhere left even the slightest trace.
This argument, of course, applies only to that form of the
interpolation hypothesis which regards the supposed inser¬
tion as having been made into the completed Gospel. It does
not apply to the view that the author of the Gospel himself
made the insertion into the narrative derived from his source
or into the Gospel which he had already written but had not
published. But possibly these forms of the hypothesis may be
found to be faced by special difficulties of their own.
At any rate, what we shall now do is to examine these
three forms of the interpolation hypothesis so far as possible
together — noting, of course, as we go along, the cases where
any particular argument applies only to one or to two of the
three forms rather than to all. In other words, we shall ex¬
amine the question whether or not Lk. i. 34, 35 is an original
part of its present context or else has been inserted into that
context either by the author of the Gospel into a source or by
the author of the Gospel into his own completed work or by
some scribe.
The first consideration which we may notice as having
been adduced in favor of the interpolation theory is of a
11 Compare “The New Testament Account of the Birth of Jesus,” in
this Review, iv, 1906, pp. 50 f.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 533
general character. The rest of the narrative, it is said, out¬
side of Lk. i. 34, 35 is perfectly compatible with a birth of
Jesus simply as the son of Joseph and Mary, indeed it is even
contradictory to the notion of a virgin birth; if, therefore,
we accomplish the simple deletion of these two verses, all
inconsistence is removed and the story becomes perfectly
smooth and easy.
With regard to this argument, it should be noticed, in the
first place, that the simple deletion of Lk. i. 34, 35 will not
remove the virgin birth from the Third Gospel in general, or
from the infancy narrative in particular; for the virgin birth
is clearly implied in several other places.
The first of these places is found at Lk. i. 26 f., where it
is said : “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent
from God unto a city of Galilee whose name was Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of
the house of David, and the name of the virgin was Mary.”
Here Mary is twice called a virgin, and in what follows
nothing whatever is said about her marriage to Joseph. This
phenomenon is perfectly natural if the virgin birth was in
the mind of the narrator, but it is very unnatural if the re¬
verse is the case. Advocates of the interpolation theory are
therefore compelled to offer some explanation of the lan¬
guage in Lk. i. 27.
Two explanations are open to them. In the first place, it
may be said that verse 27 has been tampered with by the same
interpolator who inserted verses 34, 35, and that originally
Mary was not here called a virgin. But against this explana¬
tion may be urged the fact that the word “virgin” occurs twice
in the verse, and that if that word was not originally there the
whole structure of the verse must have been different. The
second possible explanation is that although the form of
verse 27 which we now have is the original form — that is,
although Mary was really designated there as a virgin — yet
the mention of her marriage to Joseph has been omitted, by
the interpolator of Lk. i. 34, 35, from the subsequent nar¬
rative. But it may be doubted whether this explanation quite
534
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
accomplishes the purpose for which it is proposed. Even if
the writer of Lk. i. 27 were intending to introduce later on a
mention of Mary’s marriage to Joseph, his designation of
her as a virgin would seem to be unnatural. In the Old Tes¬
tament narratives of heavenly annunciations, the annuncia¬
tions are represented as being made to married women ; and
if the narrator of Lk. i, ii intended the promised son to be
regarded as having a human father as well as a human
mother, as in those Old Testament narratives, why did he
not, as is done there, represent the annunciation as being
made to a married woman? Why does he insist so particu¬
larly, by a repetition of the word, that it was made to Mary
when she was a “virgin”? It must be remembered that ac¬
cording to all or nearly all of the advocates of the interpola¬
tion theory, the narrative is quite unhistorical ; so that the
narrator, according to their view, was not hampered by any
historical consideration from placing the annunciation either
before or after the marriage, exactly as he pleased. Why
then does he insist so particularly that it took place before
the marriage, or while Mary was still a “virgin,” instead of
representing it as taking place after the marriage? Surely
this latter representation would have been far more natural,
as well as more in accord with Old Testament analogy, if the
narrator really intended the promised son to be regarded as
being, in a physical sense, the son of Joseph.
A possible answer to this argument of ours might be
based upon Lk. ii. 7, where it is said that Jesus was the
“firstborn son” of Mary, and upon Lk. ii. 23 where there is
recorded compliance in the case of Jesus with the Old Tes¬
tament provisions about the firstborn. Perhaps, the advocates
of the interpolation hypothesis might say, the emphasis in
Lk. i. 27 upon the virginity of Mary at the time when the an¬
nunciation was made to her, is due only to the desire of the
narrator to show that she had not previously had children.
But we do not think that this answer is satisfactory. Isaac
was the firstborn son of his mother Sarah, in accordance
with the Old Testament narrative; and yet the annunciation
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 535
of his birth is represented as having come to his mother
when she was already married. Similar is the case also with
the birth of Samson and of Samuel. Why could not these
models have been followed by the narrator of the birth of
Jesus? Surely he could have represented Jesus as the first¬
born son without placing the annunciation, in so unnatural
and unprecedented a way, before instead of after his mother's
marriage.
At any rate, whether we are correct or not in regarding
this second explanation of Lk. i. 27 as inadequate, it should
be noticed that both the two explanations result in an over¬
loading of the interpolation hypothesis. Whether it be held
that Lk. i. 27 has been tampered with, or that something has
been removed by the interpolator at a later point in the nar¬
rative, in either case the activities of the interpolator must
be regarded as having extended farther than was at first
maintained. What becomes, then, of the initial argument
that a simple removal of Lk. i. 34, 35 will suffice to make the
narrative all perfectly smooth and easy as a narrative repre¬
senting Jesus as being in a physical sense the son of Joseph?
Moreover, Lk. i. 27 is not the only verse which requires
explanation if Lk. i. 34, 35 be removed. What shall be done
with Lk. ii. 5, which reads: “to be enrolled with Mary who
was betrothed to him being great with child.” How could
Mary be said to be only betrothed to Joseph, when she was
already great with child? Certainly this form of expression,
coming from a narrator who of course intended to record
nothing derogatory to the honor of Mary, implies the virgin
birth in the clearest possible way.
It is true, the matter is complicated in this case, as it was
not in the case of Lk. i. 27, by variation in the extant manu¬
script transmission. The reading “who was betrothed to
him” appears, indeed, in the best Greek uncials, including the
typical representatives of the “Neutral” type of text, the
Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. It also appears
in the Codex Bezae, which is a representative of the “West¬
ern” type of text, and in a number of the versions. But
536 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
certain manuscripts of the Old Latin Version and the “Si-
naitic Syriac” manuscript of the Old Syriac Version read
“his wife” ; and a number of the later uncials with the mass
of the cursive manuscripts, representing what Westcott and
Hort called the “Syrian Revision,” read “his betrothed
wife.”
This last reading is generally rejected as being a “conflate
reading” ; evidently, it is held, some scribe combined the
reading “betrothed” with the reading “wife” to make the
reading “betrothed wife.” But what decision shall be reached
as between the other two readings ?
The external evidence certainly seems to favor the reading
“betrothed,” which appears in the great early uncials, repre¬
sentative of the “Neutral” type of text, whereas the reading
“wife” appears in no Greek manuscript at all but is attested
only in Latin and in Syriac. Despite all that has been said in
criticism of Westcott and Hort’s high estimate of the
Neutral text, recent criticism has not really succeeded in in¬
validating that estimate.
Nevertheless, the combination of important Old Latin
manuscripts with the Sinaitic Syriac in favor of the reading
“wife” shows that that reading was in existence at a rather
early time. It must, therefore, at least be given considera¬
tion.12
At first sight, transcriptional probability might seem to be
in favor of it. If Mary at this point was in the original text
spoken of as Joseph’s “wife,” it is possible to conceive of
some scribe, who was eager to protect the virginity of Mary
from any possible misunderstanding, as being offended by
the word “wife” and so as substituting the word “betrothed”
for it.
But it is possible also to look at the matter in a different
light. If the word “betrothed” is read in this verse, then at
least a verbal contradiction arises as over against the Gospel
12 The reading yvvaud , “wife,” is favored by a number of recent
scholars — for example by Gressmann ( Das Weihnachtsevangelium, 1914,
pp. 10 f.). It was favored by Hillmann, op. cit., 1891, pp. 216 f.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 537
of Matthew; for without doubt Matthew lays great stress
upon the fact that when Jesus was born Mary was in a legal
sense not merely betrothed to Joseph but actually his wife.
The contradiction need not indeed be anything more than
formal; for there is no reason why Luke may not be using
a terminology different from that of Matthew, so that by
the word “betrothed” he is designating the extraordinary
relationship which according to Matthew prevailed after
Joseph had obeyed the instructions of the angel — that is, the
relationship in which Mary was legally the wife of Joseph
but in which he “knew her not until she had borne a son.”13
But although the contradiction may not actually be more
than formal, it might well have seemed serious to a devout
scribe. The change from “betrothed” to “wife” may there¬
fore fall into the category of “harmonistic corruptions.”
This hypothesis, we think, is more probable than the alter¬
native hypothesis, that “wife” was changed to “betrothed”
for doctrinal reasons. Transcriptional considerations are
thus not opposed to the reading of the Neutral text, and that
reading should in all probability be regarded as correct.
But if the reading “betrothed” at Lk. ii. 5 is correct, then
we have another overloading of the interpolation hypothesis
with regard to Lk. i. 34, 35 : the advocates of that hypothesis
must suppose that the interpolator tampered with Lk. ii. 5 as
well as with Lk. i. 27 or with a supposed subsequent insertion
mentioning the marriage of Mary to Joseph. Obviously the
removal of all mention of the virgin birth from Lk. i-ii is by
no means so simple a matter as was at first supposed.
There is of course still another place in the Third Gospel
where the virgin birth is clearly alluded to — namely Lk. iii.
23. The words “as was supposed” in that verse — “being, as
was supposed, the son of Joseph” — clearly imply that Jesus
was only “supposed” to be the son (in the full sense) of
Joseph, and that really his relationship to Joseph was of a
different kind.
In this case there is no manuscript evidence for the omis-
13 Mt. i. 25.
538 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
sion of the words; the words appear in all the extant wit¬
nesses to the text, the variants (of order and the like) being
unimportant for the matter now under discussion. The verse,
therefore, constitutes an additional weight upon at least one
form of the interpolation theory regarding Lk. i. 34, 35 ; it
constitutes a weight upon the hypothesis that those verses are
an interpolation into the completed Gospel. For if Lk. i. 34, 35
is an interpolation, the words “as was supposed” in Lk. iii. 23
must also be an interpolation ; and the more numerous such
interpolations are thought to be, the more difficult does it
become to explain the disappearance from the many lines of
documentary attestation of all traces of the original, unin¬
terpolated text.
Of course, this verse, Lk. iii. 23, has no bearing against
the other principal form of the interpolation hypothesis,
which supposes that the interpolation of Lk. i. 34, 35 was
made by the author of the Gospel himself into his source;
for Lk. iii. 23 does not stand within the infancy narrative.
But even that form of the hypothesis is faced, as we have
seen, by the difficulties presented by Lk. i. 27 and ii. 5. Thus
it is not correct to say that if the one passage Lk. i. 34, 35
were deleted, the attestation of the virgin birth would be
removed from the Lucan infancy narrative. If that passage
is an interpolation, then at least one and probably two other
passages must also be regarded as having been tampered
with. But obviously every addition of such ancillary sup¬
positions renders the original hypothesis less plausible.
Nevertheless, the advocates of the interpolation hypothe¬
sis may still insist that although one or two verses in the
infancy narrative outside of Lk. i. 34, 35 do imply the virgin
birth, yet the bulk of the narrative proceeds upon the op¬
posite assumption that Jesus was the son of Joseph by or¬
dinary generation. The arguments in favor of this contention
may perhaps be classified under three heads. In the first place,
it is said, the narrative traces the Davidic descent of Jesus
through Joseph, not through Mary, so that it must regard
Joseph as His father. In the second place, Joseph is actually
spoken of in several places as the “father” of Jesus, and
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 539
Joseph and Mary are spoken of as His “parents.” In the
third place, there is attributed to Mary in certain places a
lack of comprehension which, it is said, would be unnatural
if she knew her son to have been conceived by the Holy
Ghost.
The fact upon which the first of these arguments is based
should probably be admitted ; it is probably true that the
Lucan infancy narrative traces the Davidic descent of Jesus
through Joseph. Whether it does so depends to a consider¬
able extent upon the interpretation of Lk. i. 27. Do the words
“of the house of David,” in that verse refer to Joseph or to
Mary?14 It seems more natural to regard them as referring
to Joseph. This is so for two reasons. In the first place, the
words come immediately after the name of Joseph; and in
the second place repetition of the noun, “the virgin,” would
not have been necessary at the end of the verse if Mary had
just been referred to in the preceding clause ; if “of the house
of David” referred to Mary, the wording would be simply
“to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of
the house of David, and her name was Mary.”
Some modern Roman Catholic scholars have indeed
argued with considerable force against this conclusion. The
repetition of the word “virgin” instead of the use of the
simple pronoun “her,” they argue, is to be explained by the
desire of the narrator not merely to mention, but to em¬
phasize, the virginity of Mary; and since Mary is evidently
the chief person in the narrative, it is natural, they say, to
take the three phrases ; ( 1 ) “betrothed to a man whose name
was Joseph,” (2) “of the house of David,” and (3) “the
name of the virgin was Mary,” as being all of them descrip¬
tive of Mary. These arguments are certainly worthy of con¬
sideration — more consideration than they have actually re¬
ceived. And yet they are hardly sufficient to overthrow the
prime facie evidence. It does seem more natural, after all,
to refer the words “of the house of David” to Joseph.
14 Verses 26 f. read : bvSb r<p p-yvl t<2 Hkt p a-rreaTdX-q 6 AyyeXos Taf3pi.T)\ airb
toC 0eaO e/s irbXiv rfj s I’ aXiXa/a s 6vopa Nafap^d, irpos irapdtvov ipvqarevpevqv av8pl
tp 8vopa 'l(i><T-ti<f>, /£ oCkov Aave/5, (cat t6 6vopa rijs trapdevov Maptdp.
540 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
If so, the Davidic descent of Mary is not mentioned in the
narrative. There is indeed nothing in the narrative to pre¬
vent us from holding, if we care to do so, that Mary was
descended from David. Certainly her kinship with Elisabeth15
does not preclude such an opinion; for intermarriage be¬
tween the tribe of Levi, to which Elisabeth belonged, and the
other tribes was perfectly permissible under the law. No
positive objection, therefore, can be raised to the view, which
is held even by some scholars who reject the reference of
the words “of the house of David” in Lk. i. 27 to Mary, that
the narrator means to imply in his account of the annuncia¬
tion to the virgin that Mary as well as Joseph was descended
from David. But certainly the Davidic descent of Mary, even
though it be held to be implied (which we for our part think
very doubtful), is at any rate not definitely stated.
If so, it looks as though the Davidic descent of Jesus were
traced by the narrator through Joseph. But how can that be
done if the narrator regarded the line as broken by the fact
that Joseph was not really the father of Jesus?
In reply it may be said that some persons in the early
Church certainly did regard the two things — ( 1 ) the Davidic
descent of Jesus through Joseph and (2) the virgin birth of
Jesus — as being compatible. Such persons, for example, were
the author of the first chapter of Matthew and the man who
produced the present form of the first chapter of Luke, even
though this latter person be thought to have been merely an
interpolator. But if these persons thought that the two things
were compatible, why may not the original author of the
narrative in Lk. i-ii have done so? And if the original author
did so, then the fact that he traces the Davidic descent
through Joseph does not prove that he did not also believe
in the virgin birth ; so that the tracing of the Davidic descent
through Joseph ceases to afford any support to the interpo¬
lation theory.
It is another question, of course, whether the virgin birth
is really compatible with the Davidic descent through Joseph.
15 Lk. i. 36.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 54I
All that we need to show for the present purpose is that it
may well have been thought to be compatible by the author
of the infancy narrative. However, it would be a mistake to
leave the question, even at the present point in our argument,
in so unsatisfactory a condition. As a matter of fact, there is,
we think, a real, and not merely a primitively assumed, com¬
patibility between the Davidic descent through Joseph and the
virgin birth; the author of the first chapter of Matthew and
also (if we are right in rejecting the interpolation theory)
the author of the first two chapters of Luke had a perfect
right to regard Jesus as the heir of the promises made to the
house of David even though He was not descended from
David by ordinary generation.
We reject, indeed, the view of Badham that, according
to the New Testament birth narratives, although Mary
was a virgin when Jesus was born, yet in some supernatural
way, and not by the ordinary intercourse of husband and wife,
Joseph became even in a physical sense the father of Jesus.18
This suggestion fails to do justice, no doubt, to the meaning
of the narratives. In the first chapter of Matthew, and also
really in the first chapter of Luke, the physical paternity of
Joseph is clearly excluded.
Yet it ought to be observed, in the first place, that the Jews
looked upon adoptive fatherhood in a much more realistic
way than we look upon it. In this connection we can point,
for example, to the institution of Levirate marriage. Ac¬
cording to the Old Testament law, when a man died without
issue, his brother could take the wife of the dead man and
raise up an heir for his brother. Evidently the son was re¬
garded as belonging to the dead man to a degree which is
foreign to our ideas. Because of this Semitic way of think¬
ing, very realistic terms could be used on Semitic ground to
express a relationship other than that of physical paternity.
Then so eminent an expert as F. C. Burkitt, who certainly
cannot be accused of apologetic motives, maintains that the
word “begat” in the Matthaean genealogy does not indicate
18 E. P. Badham in a letter in The Academy for November 17, 1894
(vol. xlvi, pp. 401 f.).
542 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
physical paternity but only the transmission of legal heir¬
ship, so that even if the genealogy had ended with the words
“Joseph begat Jesus,” that would not have afforded the
slightest indication that the author did not believe in the
virgin birth.17 The truth is that in the New Testament
Jesus is presented in the narratives of the virgin birth as
belonging to the house of David just as truly as if he were in
a physical sense the son of Joseph. He was a gift of God to
the Davidic house, not less truly, but on the contrary in a
more wonderful way, than if he had been descended from
David by ordinary generation. Who can say that this New
Testament representation is invalid? The promises to David
were truly fulfilled if they were fulfilled in accordance with
the views of those to whom they were originally given.
In the second place, the relation in which Jesus stood to
Joseph, on the assumption that the story of the virgin birth
is true, was much closer than is the case with ordinary adop¬
tion. By the virgin birth the whole situation was raised be¬
yond ordinary analogies. In an ordinary instance of adop¬
tion there is another human being — the actual father — who
disputes with the father by adoption the paternal relation to
the child. Such was not the case with Joseph in his relation¬
ship to Jesus, according to the New Testament narratives.
He alone and no other human being could assume the rights
and the duties of a father with respect to this child. And the
child Jesus could be regarded as Joseph’s son and heir with
a completeness of propriety which no ordinary adoptive re¬
lationship would involve.
Thus the fact that in the Lucan infancy narrative Jesus is
presented as the descendant of David through Joseph does
not at all show that the narrative in its original form con¬
tained no mention of the virgin birth.
Moreover, in refuting the first supposed proof of contra¬
diction between the verses that attest the virgin birth and
the rest of the narrative, we have really already refuted the
second supposed proof. The second argument, as we ob-
17 Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mepharreshe, 1904, ii. pp. 260 f.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 543
served, is based upon the application, in the second chapter of
Luke, of the term “father” to Joseph and of the term “parents”
to Joseph and Mary.18 Of the instances where this phenome¬
non occurs, Lk. ii. 48 clearly belongs in a special category ; for
there the term “father” is not used by the narrator in his own
name but is attributed by the narrator to Mary. Evidently,
whatever may be the narrator’s own view of the relationship
of Joseph to Jesus, it is unnatural that even if the virgin birth
was a fact, Mary should have mentioned the special nature
of that relationship in the presence of her Son. Thus in at¬
tributing the term “father” to Mary, in her conversation
with Jesus, the narrator, if he did know of the virgin birth,
is merely keeping within the limits of historical probability
in a way which would not be the case if he had endeavored
to make the virgin birth explicit at this point. But even the
other occurrences of the term “father” or “parents” are
thoroughly natural even if the narrator knew and accepted
the story of the virgin birth. For, as we have just observed
in connection with the matter of the Davidic descent, such
terms could well be used on Semitic ground to describe even
an ordinary adoptive relationship — to say nothing of the
altogether unique relationship in which, according to the
story of the virgin birth, Joseph stood to the child Jesus.
Thus those manuscripts of the Old Latin Version which sub¬
stitute in these passages the name “Joseph” for the term
“father” and the phrase “Joseph and his mother” for the
term “parents” are adopting an apologetic device which is
altogether unnecessary. The absence of any such meticulous
safeguarding of the virgin birth in the original text of Lk.
ii shows not at all that the virgin birth was unknown to the
author of that chapter, but only that the chapter was com¬
posed at an early time when naively direct narration had not
yet given place to apologetic reflection.
18 Lk. ii. 33, “And his father and his mother were marvelling at the
things which were being spoken about him” ; verse 41, “And his parents
( yovels ) were in the habit of going year by year to Jerusalem at the
feast of the Passover” ; verse 43, “And his parents did not know it” ;
verse 48, “behold, thy father and I seek thee sorrowing.”
544 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
The third supposed contradiction between Lk. i. 34, 35 and
the rest of the narrative that has been detected by advocates of
the interpolation theory, is found in those places where Mary
is represented as being puzzled by evidences of the high
position of her son. How could she have been surprised by
such things, it is asked, if from the beginning she knew that
the child had been conceived by the Holy Ghost ?
With regard to this argument, it may be said, in the first
place, that the argument proves too much. If the wonder, or
lack of comprehension, which Mary is represented as dis¬
playing at various points of the narrative shows that she
could not have been regarded by the narrator as having
passed through the experience predicted in Lk. i. 34, 35, it
also shows that she could not have been the recipient even of
the other angelic words. If Mary had had promised to her a
son who was to be called a Son of the Most High19 and of
whose kingdom there was to be no end,20 why should she
have been surprised by the prophecies of the aged Simeon or
have failed to understand the emergence in the boy Jesus
of a unique filial consciousness toward God? Surely the
angel’s words, even without mention of the virgin birth,
might have provided the key to unlock all these subsequent
mysteries. Logically, therefore, the argument with which we
are now dealing would require excision, not merely of Lk. i.
34, 35, but of the whole annunciation scene. But such exci¬
sion is of course quite impossible, since the annunciation is
plainly presupposed in the rest of the narrative and since
the section Lk. i. 26-38 is composed in exactly the same style
as the rest. Evidently the argument with which we are now
dealing proves too much.
But that argument faces an even greater objection. Indeed
it betokens, on the part of those who advance it, a woeful
lack of appreciation of what is one of the most beautiful
literary touches in the narrative and at the same time an im¬
portant indication of essential historical trustworthiness.
19 Lk. i. 32.
20 Verse 33.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 545
We refer to the delicate depiction of the character of Mary.
These modern advocates of mechanical consistency seem to
suppose that Mary must have been, or rather must have been
regarded by the original narrator as being, a person of a
coldly scientific frame of mind, who, when she had passed
through the wonderful experience of the supernatural con¬
ception, proceeded to draw out the logical consequences of
that experience in all their minutest ramifications, so that
thereafter nothing in heaven or on earth could affect her
with the slightest perplexity or surprise. How different, and
how much more in accord with historical probability, is the
picture of the mother of Jesus in this wonderful narrative!
According to this narrative, Mary was possessed of a simple
and meditative — we do not say dull or rustic — soul. She
meets the strange salutation of the angel with fear and with
a perplexed question; but then when mysteries beyond all
human experience are promised her says simply : “Behold the
handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy
word.” Then she journeys far to seek the sympathetic ear of
a woman whom she can trust; and, when she is saluted in
lofty words, she responds with a hymn of praise which is
full of exultation but also full of reserve. Then when the
child is born, and the shepherds come with their tale of the
angelic host, others marvel, but Mary “kept all these things,
pondering them in her heart.” But when Simeon uttered his
prophecy about the light which was to shine forth to the
Gentiles, Mary, with Joseph, marvelled at the things which
were spoken about her child. No doubt, if she had been a
modern superman, she would have been far beyond so lowly
an emotion as wonder; no doubt, since her son had been
born without human father, she would never have been
surprised by so comparatively trifling a phenomenon as an
angelic host that appeared to simple shepherds and sang to
them a hymn of praise. But then it must be remembered that
according to this narrative Mary was not a modern super¬
man, but a Jewish maiden of the first century, nurtured in
the promises of the God — the recipient, indeed, of a wonder-
546
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
ful experience, but despite that experience still possessed of
some capacity for wonder in her devout and meditative soul.
And surely in the Palestine of the first century such a Jewish
maiden is a more natural figure than the scientific monstros¬
ity which some modern scholars seem to demand that she
should be.
Finally, when she saw her twelve-year old son in the
Temple, in the company of the doctors of the law, she was
astonished, and when her son said, “Wist ye not that I must
be about my Father’s business,” she actually failed to under¬
stand. Truly that was unpardonable dullness — so we are told
— on the part of one who knew that the child had been con¬
ceived by the Holy Ghost.
We can only say that if it really was dullness, that dull¬
ness has been shared from that day to this by the greatest
minds in Christendom. Has the utterance of the youthful
Jesus ever fully been understood — understood, we mean,
even by those who have been just as fully convinced of the
fact of the supernatural conception as Mary was convinced
if the experience actually was hers? There are depths in this
utterance which have never been fathomed even by the fram¬
ers of the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds. It will be a sad
day, indeed, if the Church comes to suppose that nothing in
this word of the boy Jesus can be understood; but it will
also be a sad day if it supposes that all can be understood.
Mary can surely be pardoned for her wonder, and for her
failure to understand.
She had indeed passed through a unique experience; her
son had been conceived in the womb without human father
as none other had been conceived during all the history of
the human race. But then when He had been born, with the
mother’s very human pangs, He was wrapped in swaddling
clothes and laid in a manger; and then He grew up like
other boys, in the Nazareth home. No doubt from the point
of view with which we are now dealing His lowly birth and
childhood ought to have caused no questioning or wonder
in Mary’s heart; no doubt she ought to have deduced from
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 547
these things, when they were taken in connection with the
miracle of His conception, the full Chalcedonian doctrine of
the two natures in the one person of the Lord ; no doubt she
ought to have been expecting the emergence, in the human
consciousness of her child, of just such a sense of vocation
and divine sonship as that which appeared when she found
Him with the doctors in the Temple; no doubt she ought to
have been far beyond all capacity for perplexity or surprise.
But then we must reflect, from our modern vantage ground,
that Mary was just a Jewish woman of the first century. It is
perhaps too much to expect that she should be a representa¬
tive of the “modern mind.” Perhaps she may even have re¬
tained the now obsolete habit of meditation and of quiet
communion with her God; perhaps, despite her great ex¬
perience, she may never have grasped the modern truth that
God exists for the sake of man and not man for the sake of
God ; perhaps God’s mercies had to her not yet come to seem
a common thing. Perhaps, therefore, despite the miracle of
the virgin birth, she may still have retained the sense of
wonder; and when angels uttered songs of praise, and aged
prophets told of the light that was to lighten the Gentiles, or
when her child disclosed a consciousness of vocation that
suddenly seemed to place a gulf between her and Him, she
may, instead of proclaiming these things to unsympathetic
ears, have preferred to keep them and ponder them in her
heart.
So understood, the picture of Mary in these chapters is
profoundly congruous with the verses that narrate the virgin
birth. By the contrary argument modern scholars show
merely that even for the prosecution of literary criticism
something more is needed than acuteness in the analysis of
word and phrase ; one must also have some sympathy for the
spirit of the narrative with which one deals. And if one ap¬
proaches this narrative with sympathy, one sees that the
supernatural conception is not only not contradictory to what
is said about the thoughts of Mary’s heart but profoundly
congruous with it. The words that recur like a refrain —
548 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
“Mary kept all these words and pondered them in her heart,”
“Mary kept all these words in her heart” — place Mary
before the readers in a way that is comprehensible only
if she alone and not Joseph is the centre of interest in the
narrative. And what made her the centre of interest save the
stupendous wonder of the virgin birth? How delicate and
how self-consistent is this picture of the mother of the Lord !
Others might pass lightly over the strange events that oc¬
curred in connection with the childhood of her Son; others
might forget the angels’ song; others might be satisfied with
easy solutions of the problem presented by the consciousness
of divine vocation which the youthful Jesus attested in the
answer which He rendered in the Temple to His earthly
parents. But not for Mary was such superficiality sufficient,
not for the one who had been chosen of God to be the mother
of the Lord. Others might be satisfied with easy answers to
questions too deep for human utterance, but not so the one
who had been overshadowed by the Holy Ghost. No, what¬
ever others might do or say, Mary kept all these things and
pondered them in her heart.
We are, indeed, as far as possible from accepting the
Roman Catholic picture of the Queen of Heaven. But we
also think that Protestants, in their reaction against Mariola-
trous excesses, have failed to do justice to the mother of our
Lord. Few and simple, indeed, are the touches with which
the Evangelist draws the picture; fleeting only are the
glimpses which he allows us into the virgin’s heart. And yet
how lifelike is the figure there depicted; how profound are
the mysteries in that pure and meditative soul ! In the narra¬
tive of the Third Gospel the virgin Mary is no lifeless autom¬
aton, but a person who lives and moves — a person who from
that day to this has had power to touch all simple and child¬
like hearts.
Whence comes such a figure into the pages of the world’s
literature? Whence comes this lifelike beauty; whence comes
this delicacy of reserve? Such questions will never be asked
by those historians who reconstruct past ages by rule of
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 549
thumb; they will never be asked by those who know the
documents without knowing the human heart. But to his¬
torians fully worthy of that name, the picture of Mary in the
Third Gospel may seem to possess a self-evidencing power.
Was such a picture the product of myth-making fancy, an
example of the legendary elaboration which surrounds the
childhood of great men? Very different, at least, were certain
other products of such fancy in the early Church. Or is this
picture drawn from the life; is the veil here gently pulled aside,
that we may look for a moment into the depths of the virgin’s
soul ; is the person here depicted truly the mother of our
Lord?
Whatever answers may be given to these questions,
whether the picture of Mary in these chapters is fiction or
truth, one thing is clear — an integral part of that picture is
found in the mention of the supernatural conception in the
virgin’s womb. Without that supreme wonder, everything
that is here said of Mary is comparatively meaningless and
jejune. The bewilderment in Mary’s heart, her meditation
upon the great things that happened to her son — all this, far
from being contradictory to the virgin birth, really presup¬
poses that supreme manifestation of God’s power. That
supreme miracle it was which rendered worth while the
glimpses which the narrator grants us into Mary’s soul.
Thus general considerations will certainly not prove Lk.
i. 34, 35 to be an interpolation; no contradiction, but rather
the profoundest harmony, is to be found between these
verses and the rest of the narrative. The Davidic descent
could clearly be traced through Joseph, and was elsewhere
traced through Joseph, even if Jesus was not by ordinary
generation Joseph’s son; the term “father” as applied to
Joseph does not necessarily imply physical paternity; the
wonder in Mary’s heart at various things that happened
during the childhood of her son does not exclude the greater
miracle of His conception in the womb, but on the contrary
contributes to the picture of which that greater miracle is an
integral part. It certainly cannot be said upon general prin-
550
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
ciples, therefore, that the writer of the rest of the narrative
could not have written Lk. i. 34, 35.
But if such general considerations — such considerations
based upon the central content of the verses — will not es¬
tablish the interpolation theory, what shall be said of the
two verses considered in detail and in the immediate con¬
text in which they appear ? Is it possible to discern elements
of style in these verses which designate them as foreign to the
narrative in which they now appear ; or else is it possible to
exhibit between them and their present context imperfect
joints which would disclose an interpolator’s hand?
The former of these questions must certainly be answered
in the negative. Harnack, it is true, discovers in the use of
two conjunctions in the verses evidences of a hand other
than that of Luke. One of these conjunctions,21 he says, oc¬
curs, indeed, a number of times in Acts, but nowhere in the
rest of the Third Gospel (unless it is genuine in Lk. vii. 7210) ;
and the other22' according to the best text of Lk. vii. 1 (where
it is probably not genuine) occurs nowhere else in the Lucan
writings.23
But surely the facts with regard to the former of these
two words are rather in favor of Lucan authorship than
against it; the word, on Harnack’s own showing, does occur
a number of times in Luke’s double work. And with regard
to the other word, it may simply be remembered that an
author’s choice of such words is seldom completely uniform.
Bardenhewer24 gives a list of other particles beside this one
that occur only once in the Lucan writings. In general it is
significant that Zimmermann25 and, more recently, Vincent
21 816.
210 In Lk. vii. 7 the words Sib oboe i/Mvrbu r/^tivcra ir pbs ere i\deiv are
omitted by the “Western” text. They are no doubt genuine. The omission
may be a harmonistic corruption to make the passage conform to Mt.
viii. 8.
12 in el.
23 Harnack, “Zu Lc. i. 34, 35,” in Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche
IVissenschaft, ii. 1901, p. 53.
24 “Zu Maria Verkiindigung,” in Biblische Zeitschrift, iii, 1905, p. 159.
25 “Evangelium des Lukas Kap. 1 und 2,” in Theologische Studien und
Kritiken, 76, 1903, p. 274.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 55 1
Taylor26 can point to the Lucan character of the diction in
these verses positively in support of their view that Luke
himself, and not some scribe, was the interpolator.
The truth is that the arguments of Zimmermann and
Vincent Taylor, on the one hand, and of Harnack on the
other, at this point simply cancel each other : the language of
the two verses displays exactly the same combination of
Jewish character with Lucan diction which appears every¬
where else in the narrative. It is quite impossible to prove by
stylistic considerations either that the verses are a Lucan
interpolation into the source (or as Vincent Taylor would
say into the original form of the Gospel) or a non-Lucan
interpolation by a scribe. Nothing could be smoother, from a
stylistic point of view, than the way in which these verses
harmonize with the rest of the infancy narrative.
If then no support for the interpolation theory can be ob¬
tained from stylistic considerations, what shall be said of
the way in which the thought of the two verses fits into the
immediate context? May any loose joints be detected by
which the verses have been inserted, or does the whole sec¬
tion appear to be of a piece ?
In this connection, some of the arguments which have
been advanced by advocates of the interpolation theory are
certainly very weak. Thus when Harnack says27 that the
question and answer in Lk. i. 34, 35 unduly separate the
words, “Behold thou shalt conceive,” in verse 31, from the
corresponding words, “Behold Elisabeth thy kinswoman has
conceived, she also,” in verse 36, surely he is demanding a
perfect regularity or obviousness of structure which is not at
all required in prose style. Even if verses 34, 35 are removed,
still the two phrases that Harnack places in parallel are
separated by the important words of verses 32 f. As a matter
of fact, it is by no means clear that the parallelism is con¬
scious at all. But what is truly surprising is that Harnack
can regard the content of this reference to Elisabeth as an
26 The Historical Evidence for the Virgin Birth, 1920, pp. 55-69.
27 Harnack, op. cit., pp. 53-55.
552
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
argument in favor of the interpolation theory instead of
regarding it as an argument against it. The words in verses
36 f., Hamack argues, obtain a good sense only if no men¬
tion of Mary’s conception by the Holy Spirit has gone be¬
fore ; for if the most wonderful thing of all has already been
promised, then it is weak and unconvincing, he thinks, to
point, in support of this wonder, to the lesser wonder of
Elisabeth’s conception in her old age.
Surely this argument should be exactly reversed. The fact
that in verses 36 f. the angel points, not to the career of
Elisabeth’s son as the forerunner of Mary’s greater Son, but
to something extraordinary in the manner of his birth,
shows plainly that this example is adduced in illustration of
something lying in the same sphere — namely in illustration
of the greater miracle involved in the conception of Jesus
entirely without human father in the virgin’s womb. If all
that had been mentioned before was the greatness of a son
whom Mary was to bear simply as the fruit of her coming
marriage with Joseph, then nothing could be more pointless
than a reference to the manner in which John was born. As
a matter of fact, the plain intention is to illustrate the
greater miracle (birth without human father) by a reference
to the lesser miracle (birth from aged parents). It is per¬
fectly true, of course, that there could be in the nature of the
case no full parallel for the unique miracle of the virgin
birth. But what the angel could do was to point to a happen¬
ing that was at least sufficient to illustrate the general prin¬
ciple “with God nothing shall be impossible.”28
It is not surprising, therefore, that Hilgenfeld29 apparently
makes the reference to Elisabeth an argument, not against,
but in favor of, the integrity of the passage, and that Spitta30
28 Lk. i. 37.
29 “Die Geburts- und Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu Luc. i. 5-ii. 52,” in
Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 44, 1901, pp. 202 f. ; “Die
Geburt Jesu aus der Jungfrau in dem Lucas-Evangelium,” ibid., pp. 316 f.
30 “Die chronologischen Notizen und die Hymnen in Lc. i u. 2,” in
Zeitschrift fiir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, vi, 1906, p. 289.
Compare also Hacker, “Die Jungfrauen-Geburl und das Neue Testa-
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 553
and others make it an argument for including verses 36 f. in
the supposed interpolation.
Against this latter hypothesis there are, indeed, the grav¬
est possible objections. Against the view that the whole pas¬
sage, embracing verses 34-37, constitutes an interpolation,
the argument from the stylistic congruity of the supposed
interpolation with the remainder of the narrative tells with
crushing force. That argument was strong even if only
verses 34 f. were regarded as interpolated. But in that case it
might conceivably (though even then not plausibly) be said
that the interpolation is too brief to disclose the stylistic
variations from the rest of the narrative which in a longer
interpolation might be expected to reveal the interpolator’s
hand. But if the interpolator inserted so long a passage as
verses 34-37, then it is truly a most extraordinary thing that
he should have been able to catch the spirit of the infancy
narrative so perfectly that nowhere in the whole course of
his long insertion has he struck a single discordant note. In¬
terpolators are not apt to be possessed of such wonderfully
delicate skill. Moreover, it may turn out that there are still
other special difficulties in the way of this modified form of
the interpolation hypothesis.
But unlikely though this modification of the interpolation
hypothesis is, it does at least show a salutary feeling for
the weakness of the more usual view. Certainly verses 36 f.
are connected with 34 f. in the most indissoluble way; it is
inconceivable that the reference to Elisabeth’s conception in
her old age should be separated from the reference to
Mary’s conception by the Holy Ghost. What we have here is
a rather clear instance of the fate that frequently besets in-
ment,” in Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 49, 1906, p. 52, and
Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels, 1909, ii, p. 351. In the second edition
of his book (1927, ii, pp. 368 f.) Montefiore has ceased to follow the ar¬
gument of Spitta, and now holds rather that the reference to Elisabeth’s
conception in her old age is not suited to the mention of the greater
miracle in verses 34 f. In general, he has become doubtful about the in¬
terpolation theory. Hacker, Spitta, and the earlier edition of Montefiore
are cited by Moffatt, An Introduction to the Literature of the New
Testament, 3rd edition, 1918 (printing of 1925), p. 268 (footnote).
554
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
terpolation theories. The critic starts hopefully to remove
something from a literary production. At first he thinks it is
an easy matter. But then he discovers, to his consternation,
that great shreds of the rest of the book are coming up along
with the thing that he is trying to remove ; the book proves to
be not an agglomeration but an organism. So it is with Lk.
i. 34, 35. At first it seems to be an easy matter just to remove
these verses and so get rid of the disconcerting attestation of
the virgin birth in a Palestinian narrative. But the thing
proves to be not so easy as it seemed. For one thing, as we
observed above, something has to be done with Lk. i. 27 and
probably with Lk. ii. 5 and iii. 23. And then here in the im¬
mediate context it is quite evident that if Lk. i. 34 f. is to go,
verses 36 f. must go too. We may, before we have finished,
discover connections with still other parts of the context. At
any rate, it should certainly be disconcerting to the advocates
of the interpolation theory that what Harnack regards as a
loose joint showing verses 34 f. to be no original part of
their present context, is regarded by equally acute observers
as being so very close a connection that if what appears in
one side of the connection is interpolated what appears on
the other side must also go. If the interpolation theory were
correct, we might naturally expect some sort of agreement
among the advocates of it as to the place where the joints
between the interpolation and the rest of the narrative are to
be put.
Not much stronger, perhaps, though no doubt more
widely advocated, than the arguments mentioned so far is
the argument to the effect that verses 34 f. constitute a
“doublet” with verses 31-33, and so could not originally
have stood side by side with those former verses. In verses
31-33, it is said, Jesus is called Son of David and Son of the
Most High ; in verse 35 he is called Son of God because of the
manner of his birth. If — so the argument runs — the writer
had had in his mind the “Son of God” of verse 35, he would
not have written the “Son of the Most High” and the
■“David His father” of verses 31-33.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 555
With respect to this argument, it should be remarked in
the first place that there is clearly no contradiction between
the representation in verses 31-33 and that in verse 34 f. Of¬
fense has indeed been taken at the grounding of divine son-
ship in verse 35 upon the physical fact of divine paternity —
“therefore also that holy thing which is begotten shall be
called the Son of God.” How different, it is said in effect, is
the Messianic conception of divine sonship in verses 31-33 !
But the question may well be asked whether the divine
sonship of the child in verse 35 is grounded so clearly upon a
physical fact of divine paternity as the objection seems to
suppose. It is perfectly possible to take the word “holy” in
that verse not as the subject but as part of the predicate. In
that case, the words should be translated: “therefore also
that which is begotten shall be called holy, Son of God.” On
this interpretation it is not particularly the divine sonship but
the holiness of the child which is established by the physical
fact of the supernatural conception, and the divine sonship
becomes merely epexegetical of the holiness. The decision
between the two ways of construing the word “holy” is
difficult. But even if the word is regarded not as predicate
but as subject, still we do not think that there is the slightest
antinomy as over against verses 31-33. Even if the meaning
is : “therefore also that holy thing that is begotten shall be
called Son of God,” we still do not see how such a grounding
of the fact of divine sonship is contradictory to that which
appears in the preceding verses. Certainly this verse does not
intend to present the only way in which the divine sonship of
the child is manifested. The verse says (in the construction
that we are now discussing) that because of the supernatural
conception the child shall be called Son of God; but it does
not say that because of the supernatural conception the child
shall be Son of God. We do not indeed lay particular stress
upon this distinction. No doubt the distinction between “to
be” and “to be called” is often not to be pressed; no doubt
the passive of the verb “to call” in the New Testament some¬
times implies not merely that a thing is designated as this or
556 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
that, but that it is rightly so designated. So here, “shall be
called Son of God” may be taken as meaning by implication,
“shall be rightly called Son of God”, and the emphasis may
be upon the fact that justifies the calling rather than the
calling itself. But whatever stress may be laid or may not be
laid upon the distinction between “to be called” and “to be,”
it is certainly absurd to take this sentence in an exclusive
sense, as though it meant that the fact of the supernatural
conception is the only reason why the child should “be called”
or should “be” the Son of God. All that is meant is that the
activity of the Holy Spirit at the conception of Jesus is in¬
timately connected with that aspect of His being which
causes Him to be called Son of God. One who was conceived
in the womb by such a miracle must necessarily be the Son of
God; a child who was conceived by the Holy Ghost could
not be just an ordinary man. But clearly the verse does not
mean that the supernatural conception was an isolated fact,
and that it was the only thing that grounds the divine son-
ship of Jesus.
Certainly the modern, exclusive way of interpreting such
an utterance is quite foreign to the Semitic mind, which could
place side by side various aspects of the Messiah’s person
even before they were united in a systematic scheme. And at
this point we are bound to' think that the Semitic mind is
preferable to the “modern mind.” Nothing could be more
consistent than the passage, verses 31-35, as it stands. First
the greatness of the promised child is celebrated in general
terms; then, in response to Mary’s question, the particular
manner of His birth is mentioned, and mentioned in a way
thoroughly congruous with the generally supernatural char¬
acter which has been attributed to Him before. How the
divine sonship which appears in verses 31-33, can be re¬
garded as incongruous with the virgin birth, or as rendering
superfluous the mention of it, is more than we can under¬
stand. Verses 34 f. are not a disturbing or unnecessary
doublet as over against verses 31-33 ; but render more specific
one point which is included in that more general assertion.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 557
At any rate, it is quite incorrect to regard verse 35 as con¬
necting the divine sonship of Jesus with the supernatural
conception in any anthropomorphic way. It is the creative
activity of the Holy Spirit, and not any assumption of
human functions of fatherhood, which is in view. The chaste
language of verse 35 is profoundly congruous with verses
31-33, and in general with the lofty monotheism of the Old
Testament ; and it is profoundly incongruous with the crassly
anthropomorphic interpretation which has sometimes been
forced upon it by modern scholars.
The arguments for the interpolation theory that have been
mentioned so far are, we think, very easily refuted. Much
more worthy of consideration is the argument with which
we now come to deal. It is not indeed cogent as a support of
the interpolation hypothesis; but at least it does call atten¬
tion to a genuine exegetical difficulty which must be exam¬
ined with some care.
We refer to the argument based upon Mary’s question in
verse 34 : “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man ?” This
question has been regarded as being inconsistent with the
context for two reasons. In the first place, why did not Mary
simply assume that the child who has just been promised was
to be the fruit of her coming marriage with Joseph? Since
she was betrothed to Joseph, the fact that she was not yet
living with him constituted no objection to the promise that
she should have a child. In the second place, why is it that
Mary should be commended, in the sequel, for her faith, if
she had uttered this doubting question, which is very similar
to the question for which Zacharias was so severely pun¬
ished?
Of these two objections it is the former which most de¬
serves attention. The latter objection, despite the great stress
that has been laid upon it by many advocates of the inter¬
polation hypothesis, can surely be dismissed rather easily. It
is true, indeed, that in the narrative Zacharias is represented
as punished for his question,31 whereas Mary, despite her
31 Lk. i. 20.
558 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
question, is praised.32 But are the two questions the same?
In form, it must be admitted, there is a certain similarity.
Both Zacharias and Mary, instead of accepting the lofty
promises of the angel without remark, ask a question be¬
tokening at least bewilderment; and both of them ground
their bewilderment in an explanatory clause. But there the
similarity ceases. Zacharias’ question reads : “According to
what shall I know this?” That question can be interpreted as
nothing else than a definite request for a sign; the wonder
that is promised must be able to exhibit an analogy with
something else before Zacharias will consent to “know” it.
Mary on the other hand says simply, “How shall this be?”.
She does not express any doubt but that it shall be, but merely
inquires as to the manner in which it is to be brought to pass.
Certainly she does not ask for a sign in order that she may
“know” what the angel has told her will be a fact.
To the modern reader, indeed, Mary’s question may seem
to indicate doubt. In our modern parlance, the words : “I do
not see how that can be,” or the like, may often mean that
we do not think that it will be. Politeness, at the present time,
is often a very irritating thing. But we have no right to at¬
tribute such politeness to Mary or to the writer who re¬
ports her words. And her question, as it stands, attests not
a refusal to believe without further proof, but only per¬
plexity as to what is involved in the angel’s words.
Even in its wording, then, Mary’s question is different
from that of Zacharias. But still greater is the difference in
the situation which the two questions respectively have in
view. Zacharias had been promised a son whom he had long
desired, a son whose birth would bring him not misunder¬
standing and slander (as Mary’s son might bring to her)
but rather a removal of the reproach to which, by his child¬
lessness, he had been subjected. Moreover the birth of such
a son, even in the old age of his parents, would be in accord¬
ance with the Old Testament analogies which Zacharias
32 Lk. i. 45. “And blessed is she who has believed ; because there shall
be a fulfilment for the things that have been spoken to her from the
Lord.”
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 559
knew very well. What except sinful unbelief could lead,
under such circumstances, to the request for a sign? Mary,
on the other hand, when the angel, prior to her marriage,
spoke of a son, was promised something which seemed at
first sight to run counter to her maidenly consciousness. Old
Testament analogies, moreover, quite contrary to what was
the case with Zacharias, could give her no help. Where in
the Old Testament was it recorded that a son had been prom¬
ised to a maid? Surely it is small cause for wonder that in
such bewilderment she should have asked the angel for light ?
Even, therefore, if the wording of the two questions were
more similar than it actually is, the underlying mind of the
two speakers may still have been quite different. Zacharias
was promised that which was quite in accord with Old Tes¬
tament analogies and would mean the fulfilment of hopes
that he had cherished for many a year ; Mary was promised
a strange, unheard of, thing, which might subject her to all
manner of reproach. And yet finally (and despite the strange
explanation from the angel, which rendered the danger of
that reproach only the more imminent) she said, in simple
submission to the will of God : “Behold the handmaiden of
the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.” It is surely
no wonder that Zacharias was punished and Mary praised.
Much more worthy of consideration, we think, is the
other one of the two objections to which Mary’s question has
given rise. Indeed, the former objection, as has just become
evident in the last paragraph, receives what weight it may
have only from this objection with which we shall now have
to deal. We have argued that if the angel’s promise to Mary
seemed inconsistent with her maidenly consciousness, her
question, unlike that of Zacharias, was devoid of blame. But,
it will be objected, why should the promise have been inter¬
preted by her in any such way ; why should it have seemed
inconsistent with her maidenly consciousness at all ? The angel
in the preceding verses has said nothing about anything pecul¬
iar in the birth of her son ; why then did she not understand
the promise as referring simply to her approaching marriage ?
560 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
If she was going to ask any question, surely it ought to have
been — thus the objection runs — a question about the great¬
ness of her son rather than about the manner of his birth;
the thing which ought to have caused surprise in view of the
preceding words is not the mere fact that she was to have
a son ( for in view of her approaching marriage that was to
be expected) but that she was to have such a son — that the
son of a humble maiden at Nazareth was to assume the
throne of David, that He was to be called the son of the
Most High and that of His Kingdom there was to be no end.
Her question in other words ought in view of the context to
have been : “How shall this be, seeing I am a humble
woman?”, instead of: “How shall this be, seeing I know
not a man?” As it is, verse 34, we are told, reveals clearly an
interpolator’s hand; it is entirely unnatural in view of the
context, and merely constitutes a clumsy device for the in¬
troduction of an idea (the virgin birth) that was quite for¬
eign to the original story.
To this argument, Roman Catholic scholars have a ready
answer. The question of Mary in verse 34, they say, is to be
explained by the fact that she had already either made a vow,
or at least formed a fixed resolve, never to have intercourse
with a man ; the present tense, “I know,” in the clause “see¬
ing I know not a man,” is to be taken in a future sense, or
rather as designating what was already a permanent principle
of Mary’s life. Thus the meaning of the verse is : “How shall
this be, since as a matter of principle I have determined not
to know a man?”
This solution certainly removes in the fullest possible way
the difficulty with which we now have to do. And no objec¬
tion to it can be raised from a linguistic point of view; there
seems to be no reason why the present indicative, “I know,”
could not be taken as designating a fixed principle of Mary’s
life that would apply to the future as well as to the present.
But the question is whether in avoiding one difficulty this
Roman Catholic solution does not become involved in other
difficulties that are greater still. In the first place, this solu-
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 561
tion runs counter to the prima facie evidence regarding the
brothers and sisters of Jesus, who are mentioned in a num¬
ber of places in the New Testament. Despite the alternative
views — that these “brethren of the Lord” were children of
Joseph by a former marriage or that they were merely
cousins of Jesus, the word “brother” being used in a loose
sense — it still seems most probable that they were simply
children of Joseph and Mary. This conclusion is in accord
with Lk. ii. 7, where Mary is said to have “brought forth her
firstborn son”; for the word “firstborn” may naturally be
held to imply that afterwards she had other children. The
implication here is, indeed, by no means certain; for under
the Jewish law the word “firstborn” was a technical term,
which could be applied even to an only child, and in the
sequel of this narrative stress is actually laid upon the fact
that the legal provisions regarding the “firstborn” were ful¬
filled in the case of Jesus. Still, despite such considerations,
the phrase does seem slightly more natural if Mary was re¬
garded by the narrator as having other children. Such an
interpretation would agree, moreover, with Mt. i. 25, where it
is said that “Joseph knew her not until she had borne a son.”
Here again the natural implication of the words can con¬
ceivably be avoided ; it may be insisted that the author does
not say that Joseph knew her after she had borne a son, but
only that he did not know her before she had borne a son.
And yet it does seem strange that if the narrator supposed
that Joseph never lived with Mary as with a wife he should
not have said that in simple words.
In rejecting the Roman Catholic solution of our difficulty,
we are not merely influenced by the positive historical evi¬
dence for the existence of other sons of Mary. Equally co¬
gent is the negative consideration that if the narrator in the
first chapter of Luke had meant that Mary had formed a
resolve of perpetual virginity, he would naturally have in¬
dicated the fact in a very much clearer way. Such a resolve in
a Jewish maiden of the first century would have been an un¬
heard of thing. Asceticism, with the later prejudice against
562 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
marriage and the begetting of children, was quite foreign to
the Jewish circles that are depicted in Lk. i-ii in such a vivid
manner. If, therefore, the narrator were intending to at¬
tribute so extraordinary a resolve to Mary, he would natur¬
ally have taken pains to make his meaning perfectly clear ; he
might, for example, have been expected to tell of the special
divine guidance which alone could have led a Jewish maiden
to depart in such an unheard of way from all the customs
and all the ingrained sentiments of her people. As a matter
of fact, the narrator has done nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, he has simply told us that Mary was betrothed to
Joseph; and he has not hinted in any way whatsoever that
the approaching marriage was to be a marriage in name only.
Such a marriage is indeed set forth with great clearness in
the apocryphal Protevangelium of James ; but there is not the
slightest hint of any such thing in our Third Gospel.
If then the Roman Catholic solution is to be rejected, what
shall be put in its place? If when Mary said: “How shall
this be, seeing I know not a man?” she was not giving ex¬
pression to a resolve of perpetual virginity with which a
child in her approaching marriage with Joseph would seem
inconsistent, how shall her question be understood? Why
did she not simply assume that the son whom the angel had
promised would be the fruit of her approaching union with
her betrothed ?
Some modern scholars find an answer in the hypothesis of
a mistranslation, in our Greek Gospel, of a Hebrew or Ara¬
maic original of the angel’s words. If the future “thou
shalt conceive” in verse 31, it is said, only were a present in¬
stead of a future, all would be plain ; in that case the concep¬
tion in Mary’s womb would be represented by the angel as
taking place at once, so that Mary could not understand it as
referring it to a marriage which still lay in the future, and so
her bewildered question would be easily explained. Now al¬
though in our Greek text, it is said, the word translated,
“thou shalt conceive,” is unequivocally future, the original
of it in Hebrew or Aramaic would be a participle; and the
participle might be meant to refer to the present as well
as to the future — the decision in every individual case
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 563
being determined only by the context. In the present
passage, it is said, the participle was intended, in the
Semitic source, to refer to the present ; and the whole diffi¬
culty has come from the fact that the Greek translator, who
gave us our present form of Lk. i-ii, wrongly took it as
referring to the future. If, then, the Semitic original is here
restored, M'ary’s question — since she could not explain a
present conception in her womb by her future union with
Joseph — becomes thoroughly suited to the context, so that
there is no longer any indication of an interpolator’s clumsy
hand.
This solution, of course, assumes the existence of a Se¬
mitic original for the first chapter of Luke. That assumption
is by no means improbable. But the question might arise how
the Greek translator came to make the mistake. Would a
translator be likely — for no particular reason, since the par¬
ticiple in the source might be translated by a present, even
though it might also be translated by a future — would a
translator be likely to introduce such serious confusion into
the narrative in its Greek form? Obviously it would be more
satisfactory, if possible, to find an interpretation which would
suit the Greek narrative as it stands.
Such an interpretation, we believe, is actually forthcom¬
ing, though it appears in a number of slightly different
forms, between which we may not be able to decide. This true
interpretation of the Greek text is not without affinity for the
hypothesis of mistranslation which has just been discussed;
indeed what it actually proposes is to find in the Greek words
a meaning rather similar to that which the advocates of the
theory of mistranslation have found in the Hebrew or Ara¬
maic original. The Greek word, “thou shalt conceive,” is in¬
deed future; but would it necessarily be referred by Mary to
the time of her marriage with Joseph; might it not rather be
referred by her to an immediate future ?
The latter alternative, we think, is correct. Annunciations,
as they were known to Mary from the Old Testament, were
made to married women; and when such an annunciation
564 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
came to her, an unmarried maiden, it is not unnatural that
she should have been surprised. No doubt the influence upon
her of the Old Testament narratives was not conscious; in
the bewilderment caused by the angel’s greeting it is not
likely that she reviewed consciously in her mind the stories
of Hannah or of the wife of Manoah. But the unconscious
effect of these stories may have been very great; they may
well have served to create in her subconscious mind a close
connection between angelic annunciations and the condition
of a married woman as distinguished from that of a maid.
Hence to her maidenly consciousness the promise of a son-
may well have occasioned her the utmost surprise.
If, indeed, she had looked at the matter from the point of
view of cold logic, her surprise might possibly have been
overcome. She could have reflected that after all she was be¬
trothed, and that the annunciation could in her case, as was
not so in the Old Testament examples, be taken as referring
to a married state that was still to come. But would such re¬
flection have been natural; is it not psychologically more
probable that she should have given expression, in such
words as those in Lk. i. 34, to her first instinctive surprise?
We have, then, in the current objection to Mary’s question
another instance of that failure to understand the character
of Mary, of that attempt to attribute to her, as she is depicted
in this narrative, the coldly scientific quality of the “modem
mind,” which has already been noticed in another connection.
Suppose it be granted that in her question to the angel Mary
was not strictly logical; is that any objection either to the
ultimate authenticity of the question as a question of Mary,
or to its presence in the narrative in Lk. i-ii? We might
almost be tempted to say that a certain lack of logic in Mary’s
words is a positive indication of their authenticity and of
their original presence in this narrative. This absence of an
easy, reasoned solution of all difficulties, this instinctive ex¬
pression of a pure, maidenly consciousness, is profoundly in
accord with the delicate delineation, all through this narra¬
tive, of the mother of the Lord.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 565
But was maidenly instinct here really at fault ; was Mary
wrong in not simply referring the angel’s promise to her ap¬
proaching marriage? Was she wrong in thinking that an
immediate conception in her womb was naturally implied in
the angel's words? We are by no means certain that this is
the case. On the contrary the very appearance of the angel
and his momentous greeting would seem clearly to indicate
some far more immediate significance in that moment than
could be found merely in a promise concerning the indefinite
future. After all, it was really strange in itself, as well as an
offence to the consciousness of the virgin, if a child to be
born in the approaching union with Joseph should be prom¬
ised before instead of after the marriage. The future tense,
“thou shalt conceive,” therefore, though not actually equiva¬
lent to a present, does refer most naturally to an immediate
future. Thus the interpretation of the angel’s previous words
which is implied in verse 34 is a very natural interpretation,
and cannot possibly stamp verses 34 f. as an interpolation.
This view avoids one difficulty that faces that theory of
mistranslation which we have rejected. If the Hebrew or
Aramaic participle of which the Greek, “thou shalt con¬
ceive,” is a translation were intended in a strictly present
sense, there would seem to be a contradiction with Lk. ii. 21,
where the name Jesus is said to have been given by the
angel before the child had been conceived in the womb. If
the conception were represented as taking place at the very
moment when the word translated “thou shalt conceive” was
uttered, then the name was given not before, but at the very
moment of, the conception. On our view, on the other hand,
it is possible to take Lk. ii. 21 in the strictest way, and yet
find no contradiction with Lk. i. 31. The conception was rep¬
resented by the angel as taking place in the immediate future,
but not at the very moment when the word, “thou shalt con¬
ceive,” was spoken. It is impossible to say just when the con¬
ception is to be put. Many have thought of the moment when
Mary said, “Be it unto me in accordance with thy word,”33
33 Lk. i. 38.
566 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
and this view has sometimes been connected with speculations
about the necessity, for the accomplishment of the incarna¬
tion, of Mary’s act of submission. The salvation of the world,
it has sometimes been held, depended upon Mary’s decision to
submit herself to God’s plan; here as elsewhere, it has been
held, God had respect to human free will. Such a way of
thinking is contrary to ours. Of course our rejection of it
does not by any means involve rejection of the view that puts
the moment of the conception at the time when Mary uttered
her final words. Yet on the whole we think it better to treat
the question as it is treated by the narrator — with a cautious
reserve. All that is involved in our view is that the “thou shalt
conceive’’ in verse 31 refers to the near future, and would not
naturally be taken by Mary as referring to her approaching
marriage.
It is quite possible that at this point we have claimed too
much ; it is quite possible that MSary’s question in verse 34 is
not strictly logical; it is quite possible that she might well
have taken the angel’s promise as referring to her approach¬
ing marriage. But that admission would not at all seriously
affect our argument. Even if Mary’s question was not strictly
logical, it was at least very natural; it was natural as ex¬
pressing her bewilderment ; like Peter at the Transfiguration,
she knew not what she said. She was terrified at the angel’s
greeting, and as a pure maiden she had not expected then the
promise of a son. What wonder is it that her maidenly
consciousness found expression in words that calm reflection
might have changed? We are almost tempted to say that the
less expressive of calm reasoning are Mary’s words in verse
34, so much the less likely are they to be due to an interpo¬
lator’s calculating mind, and so much the more likely are they
to be due to Mary herself or to have been an original part of a
narrative which everywhere depicts her character in such a
delicate way.
So far, we have been considering the arguments that have
been advanced in favor of the interpolation theory. It is now
time to consider a little more specifically the positive argu-
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 56 7
merits that may be advanced against it. What positive indica¬
tions, as distinguished from the mere burden of proof
against the interpolation theory, may be advanced in favor
of the view that Lk. i. 34 f. was an original part of the narra¬
tive in which it now stands?
The strongest indication of all, perhaps, is found in the
total impression that the narrative makes. We have been ac¬
customed to read Lk. i-ii with appreciation of its unity and of
its beauty only because the virgin birth is in our mind. But
if we could divest ourselves of that thought, if we could
imagine ourselves as reading this narrative for the first time
and reading it without Lk. i. 34 f., it would seem disorganized
and overwrought almost from beginning to end. The truth is
that the child whose birth was prophesied by an angel and was
greeted, when it came, by a choir of the heavenly host, is in¬
conceivable as a mere child of earthly parents. No, what we
really have here in this Christmas narrative is the miraculous
appearance upon the earth of a heavenly Being — a human
child, indeed, but a child like none other that ever was born.
Not merely this detail or that, but the entire inner spirit of
the narrative involves the virgin birth.
Only partially can this total impression be analyzed. Yet
such analysis is not without its value. It may serve to remove
doubts, and so may allow free scope at the last for a new and
more sympathetic reading of the narrative as a whole.
Some of the details in Lk. i-ii which presuppose the virgin
birth are of a subsidiary kind. But their cumulative effect is
very great. Thus it has been well observed that Mary’s words
of submission in Lk. i. 38 are without point if there has been
no prophecy of the virgin birth in what precedes. If all that
the angel has said is a prophecy that in her coming marriage
Mary is to be the mother of the Messiah, why should there be
this parade of submission on her part? These words are nat¬
ural only if what has been promised involves possible shame
as well as honor ; then only do they acquire the pathos which
has been found in them by Christian feeling throughout all
the centuries and which the narrator evidently intended them
to have.
568 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
It is such considerations, perhaps, which have led a few ad¬
vocates of the interpolation theory to suggest that verse 38,
as well as verses 36 f., may be regarded as part of the interpo¬
lation. But this suggestion only heaps difficulty upon diffi¬
culty. Without Mary’s final words of submission, the whole
annunciation scene is left hanging in the air. Let the reader
just imagine that verse 39 originally followed upon verse 33,
and then let him see what effect is made by such an account of
the scene. It will be evident enough that an artistic whole
has been subjected to mutilation. What point is there, more¬
over, in the praise of Mary’s faith in verse 45 — “Blessed is
she who has believed; because there shall be fulfilment of the
things that have been spoken to her from the Lord” — if
Mary has not in what precedes given any expression to her
faith? Evidently verse 45 refers to verse 38 in the clearest
possible way.
But verse 45 presupposes far more than verse 38 ; it also
presupposes the stupendous miracle the promise of which
Mary had believed. How comparatively insignificant would
Mary’s faith have been if all that had been promised her was
that her son in her coming marriage was to be the Messiah !
Is it not perfectly evident that the faith for which Mary is
praised is something far more than that ; is the reference not
plainly to her acceptance of an experience that involved pos¬
sible shame for her among men and that was quite unique in
the history of the human race. We have here a phenomenon
that appears in the narrative from beginning to end. The
truth is that this account of the birth and infancy of Jesus is
all pitched in too high a key to suit a child born by ordinary
generation from earthly parents. The exuberant praise of
Mary’s faith, like many other features of the narrative, and
indeed like the spirit of this narrative from beginning to end,
seems empty and jejune unless the reader has in his mind the
miracle which really forms the centre of the whole.
But this is not the only point at which the account of
Mary’s visit to Elisabeth presupposes the virgin birth. Cer¬
tainly the account of the visit constitutes a clear refutation at
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 569
least of that form of the interpolation theory which includes
in the interpolation verses 36 and 37. When the angel is rep¬
resented in those verses as pointing to the example of Elisa¬
beth, evidently the motive is being given for the journey that
Mary immediately undertakes. “And Mary arose in those
days and went with haste into the hill country into a city of
Judah.” Why did she go at all, and especially why did she
go in hasteH Is it not perfectly clear that it was because of the
angel’s words? Without verses 36 f. the whole account of the
visit to Elisabeth is left hanging in the air.
Verses 36 f., therefore, were clearly in the original narra¬
tive. But, as we have already pointed out, verses 36 f. pre¬
suppose verses 34 f. in the clearest possible way. As it
stands, the narrative hangs together ; but when the supposed
interpolation is removed all is thrown into confusion.
Hilgenfeld34 has pointed out still another way in which the
account of Mary’s visit to Elisabeth presupposes Lk. i. 34, 35.
Evidently at the time of the visit the conception is regarded
as already having taken place. When Elisabeth says to Mary :
“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of
thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my
Lord should come to me,”35 her words seem overwrought if
the conception is still to come. But if the conception has
already taken place at the time of Mary’s journey, how is the
journey to be explained? Surely it cannot be explained if
Mary is regarded as already married to Joseph. In that case,
as Hilgenfeld has well intimated, what would have been in
place for Mary, if there was to be any journey at all, would
have been a bridai tour with her husband, not a hasty journey
far away from her husband to the home of a kinswoman. Is
it not perfectly clear that the whole account of Mary’s visit
to Elisabeth presupposes the supernatural conception? If
Mary has passed through the wonderful experience promised
in Lk. i. 34, 35, then everything falls into its proper place;
then it is the most natural thing in the world for the angel to
34 “Die Geburts- und Kindheitsgeschichte Jesw Luc. i. 5-ii. 52,” in
Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 44, 1901, p. 204.
35 Lk. i. 42 f.
57o
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
suggest, and for Mary to carry out, a journey to visit her
kinswoman, who also has passed through a wonderful,
though of course far inferior, experience of God’s grace. But
if Lk. i. 34 f . is omitted, everything is at loose ends.
Even at the very end of the infancy narrative, the virgin
birth seems to be presupposed. When it is said in Lk. ii. 51
that Jesus “went down with them, and came to Nazareth,
and was subject unto them,” the sentence seems without
point if Jesus was born of Joseph and Mary by ordinary gen¬
eration. Why should it be thought a thing so remarkable that
a child of earthly parents, even if the child was the Messiah,
should be subject to its parents? The very way in which the
submission of the boy Jesus to His earthly parents is intro¬
duced in the narrative suggests that His relationship to them
was such as to make the submission an extraordinary and
noteworthy thing.
We should not, indeed, be inclined to lay particular stress
upon this point if it were taken by itself. Perhaps one might
say that if there was in the boy Jesus so extraordinary a
consciousness of sonship toward God as is attested by His
answer in the Temple, it was remarkable that He should
subject Himself to earthly parents even if He were descended
from them by ordinary generation. But that only pushes the
difficulty in the way of an acceptance of the interpolation
theory a step farther back. Is it likely that a son born of
earthly parents by ordinary generation should have had such
a stupendous consciousness of unique sonship toward God at
all? We are really led back again and again, wherever we
start, to one central observation. That central observation is
that only a superficial reading of Lk. i-ii can find in this nar¬
rative an account of a merely human child ; when the reader
puts himself really into touch with the inner spirit of the nar¬
rative he sees that everywhere a supernatural child is in view.
There is therefore a certain element of truth in the view ad¬
vanced by the school of comparative religion to the effect that
the child depicted in this narrative is a Gotteskind. That view
is certainly wrong in detecting a polytheistic and mytho-
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 571
logical background for the stories of Lk. i-ii ; but at least
it is quite correct in observating that what the narrator has
in view is no ordinary, merely human child. The whole at¬
mosphere that here surrounds the child Jesus is an atmos¬
phere proper only to one who has been conceived by the Holy
Ghost.350
But it is time to turn from such general considerations to
an argument of a much more specific kind. The argument to
which we refer is found in the remarkable parallelism that
prevails between the account of the annunciation to Mary
and that of the annunciation to Zacharias.38 This parallelism
shows in the clearest possible way that the verses Lk. i. 34,
35 belong to the very innermost structure of the narrative. In
both accounts we find (1) An appearance of the angel Ga¬
briel, (2) fear on the part of the person to whom the annun¬
ciation is to be made, (3) reassurance by the angel and pro¬
nouncement of a promise, (4) a perplexed question by the
recipient of the promise, (5) a grounding of the question in
350 The central place of the virgin birth in Lk. i-ii was recognized with
special clearness nearly a century ago by Chr. Hermann Weisse {Die
evangelische Geschichte, 1838, i, pp. 141-232). The myth of the virgin
birth, he said in effect, is the central idea of the Lucan cycle : the rest of
the cycle is built up around it ; John the Baptist, for example, is brought
in simply in order to make the importance of the birth of Christ clearer
by the similarity and contrast over against the birth of John. Whatever
may be thought of Weisse’s mythical theory, there can be no doubt but
that in making the virgin birth the central idea in the Lucan narrative he
is displaying a true literary insight as over against every form of the
interpolation theory. Far from being an excrescence in the narrative, the
virgin birth is really the thing for which all the rest exists. And that
holds good no matter whether the narrative is mythical, as Weisse
thought, or whether it is historical. If it is mythical, then the virgin birth
explains the invention of the other elements ; if it is historical, then the
virgin birth explains the choice of the facts which are singled out for the
narrative and also explains the way in which the narration is carried
through. A return to Weisse would certainly, from the literary point of
view, be desirable. And there is a sense in which that return, so far
as the interpolation theory is concerned, is actually being effected in the
most recent criticism of the infancy narratives.
36 The parallelism was clearly recognized so early as 1841 by Gelpke
( Die Jugendgeschichte des Herrn, pp. 41-51, 167-169) and was exhibited
by him by at least a rudimentary use of parallel columns.
572 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
a causal clause, (6) reiteration of the promise with reference
to something which in both cases is in the nature of a sign.
The facts may best be indicated if we place the two sections
in parallel columns :37
Lk. i. 11-20
1
Verse n
And there appeared unto him an
angel of the Lord standing on the
right side of the altar of incense.
2
Verse 12
And when Zacharias saw him, he
was troubled, and fear fell upon
him.
3
But the angel said unto him, Fear
not, Zacharias : for thy prayer is
heard ; and thy wife Elisabeth shall
bear thee a son, and thou shalt call
his name John. And thou shalt have
joy and gladness; and many shall
rejoice at his birth. For he shall be
great in the sight of the Lord, and
shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink: and he shall be filled with
the Holy Ghost, even from his
mother’s womb. And many of the
children of Israel shall he turn to
the Lord their God. And he shall
go before him in the spirit and
power of Elias, to turn the hearts
of the fathers to the children, and
the disobedient to the wisdom of
the just; to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord.
4
Verse i8a
And Zacharias said unto the angel,
Whereby shall I know this?
Lk. i. 28-38
1
Verse 28
And the angel came in unto her,
and said, Hail, thou that art highly
favoured, the Lord is with thee.
2
Verse 29
And she was troubled at the say¬
ing, and cast in her mind what
manner of salutation this might be.
3
And the angel said unto her, Fear
not, Mary: for thou hast found
favour with God. And behold, thou
shalt conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a son, and shalt call his
name Jesus.
He shall be great and shall be
called the Son of the Highest:
and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David :
and he shall reign over the house
of Jacob for ever; and of his
kingdom there shall be no end.
4
Verse 34a
Then said Mary unto the angel,
How shall this be,
37 The language of the following translation is for the most part that
of the Authorized Version, corrected to conform to a better Greek text.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 573
5
Verse 18b
for I am an old man, and my wife
well stricken in years.
6
Verses 19-20
And the angel answering said unto
him, I am Gabriel that stand in the
presence of God ; and am sent to
speak unto thee, and to shew thee
these glad tidings.
5
Verse 34b
seeing I know not a man?
6
Verses 35-37
And the angel answered and said
unto her, The Holy Ghost shall
come unto thee, and the power of
the Highest shall overshadow thee ;
therefore also that holy thing
which is begotten shall be called
the Son of God.
And behold, thou shalt be dumb,
and not able to speak, until the day
that these things shall be per¬
formed, because thou believedst
not my words, which shall be ful¬
filled in their season.
And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth,
she also hath conceived a son in her
old age : and this is the sixth month
with her, who was called barren.
For with God nothing shall be im¬
possible.
It may be remarked in passing that even this exhibition
does not fully set forth the connection between the two ac¬
counts. It does not show, for example, that in both cases the
name of the angel is Gabriel, that the description of Mary in
verse 27 is very similar in form to that of the parents of John
in verse 5, that the Holy Spirit is mentioned in connection
with the beginning of the earthly life both of John and of
Jesus, and that the two accounts are specifically linked to¬
gether by the words “in the sixth month” in Lk. i. 39. But
even in itself the parallelism, when the two accounts are set
forth as above in parallel columns, is so striking as to render
almost inconceivable the hypothesis that it came by chance.
No one who really attends to the structure of both sections
should doubt but that they came from the same hand. In both
cases the narrative is cast in the same mould.
But if verses 34 and 35 were removed, this parallelism
would be marred at the most important point. What, then
does the interpolation hypothesis involve? It involves some¬
thing that is certainly unlikely in the extreme — namely the
supposition that an interpolator, desiring to insert an idea
utterly foreign to the original narrative, has succeeded in in-
574
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
serting that idea in such a way as not only to refrain from
marring the existent parallelism — even that would have been
difficult enough — but actually to fill up in the most beautiful
fashion a parallelism which otherwise would have been in¬
complete ! We should have to suppose that the original nar¬
rator, though he did not include the virgin birth, left a gap
exactly suited to its inclusion. And then we should have to
suppose the appearance of an interpolator gifted with such
marvellous literary skill as to be able, in the first place, to
construct an interpolation that in spirit and style should con¬
form perfectly to the body of the narrative, and then, in the
second place, to insert that interpolation in just the place
necessary to complete a parallelism which, when it was thus
completed, makes upon every attentive reader the impression
of being an essential element in the original framework of
the narrative.
Surely this entire complex of suppositions is improbable
in the extreme. How, then, can we possibly avoid the simple
conclusion that the parallelism between the two accounts, in¬
cluding the part of it which appears in Lk. i. 34 f., was due
to the original narrator ?
At this point, however, there may be an objection. May it
not be said that the very perfection of the parallelism that
appears if verses 34, 35 are included constitutes an argument
not for but against the originality of those verses? Have we
not, in other words, in the inclusion of verses 34 f., some¬
thing in the nature of a “harmonistic corruption” ? May not
an interpolator, observing the large measure of parallelism
between the accounts of the annunciations, have decided to
make that parallelism a little more complete than it actually
was?
A little reflection, we think, will show that these questions
must be answered with an emphatic negative. The analogy
with what is called a “harmonistic corruption” in textual
criticism would not hold in this case at all. To show that it
would not hold, we need only to glance at the harmonistic
corruptions that actually appear in the text of the Synoptic
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 575
Gospels. What is the nature of these corruptions? An ex¬
ample will make the matter plain. The verse Mt. xvii. 21,
“Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,”
in the account of the healing of the demoniac boy after the
descent from the mount of the transfiguration, is omitted by
the so-called “Neutral” type of text as attested by the Codex
Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. It is universally recog¬
nized as a gloss. But if it were genuine it would not add any¬
thing to our knowledge of the incident; for in Mk. ix. 29
very similar words are certainly genuine. It is perfectly evi¬
dent that the text of Matthew has been made to conform to
that of Mark. We have here, therefore, a typical example of a
“harmonistic corruption.” But how totally different is this
case from the case of Lk. i. 34 f., if these latter verses are
really an addition to the original narrative ! In the case of Mt.
xvii. 21, a sentence is taken over in a mechanical way from a
parallel account ; in the case of Lk. i. 34 f ., all that would be
derived from the parallel account would be the sequence of
question, grounding of the question, and answer: and the
content of the interpolation would be of a highly original
kind. Such originality would be quite unheard of among
“harmonistic corruptions.” What we should have here would
be no mere obvious filling out of a narrative by the mechan¬
ical importation of details from a parallel account, but the
addition of a highly original idea — by hypothesis foreign to
the original narrative — and the expression of that idea in a
way profoundly congruous, indeed, with the inner spirit of
the narrative, but at the same time quite free from any
merely literary dependence upon what has gone before or
upon what follows. It is doubtful whether any parallel could
be cited for such a phenomenon in the entire history of tex¬
tual corruptions.
It appears, therefore — if we may use for the moment the
language of textual criticism — that “intrinsic probability”
and “transcriptional probability” are here in admirable agree¬
ment. On the one hand, the verses Lk. i. 34 and 35 are really
in the closest harmony with the rest of the narrative; but on
576 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
the other hand that harmony is not of the obvious, super¬
ficial kind that would appeal to an interpolator. Indeed the
very difficulty that we found in the interpretation of Mary’s
question in verse 34 may be turned into an argument not for,
but against, the interpolation theory. The difficulty is of a
superficial kind that would probably have been avoided by an
interpolator; the underlying harmony is of a kind worthy
only of such a writer as the original composer of Lk. i-ii.
Shall we attribute to an interpolator the delicate touch that
is really to be found in Mary’s question? Is not the question
rather — we mean not the invention of the question but the
preservation of it — to be attributed to the writer who has
given us the rest of this matchless narrative?
In what has just been said, we have been using the lan¬
guage of textual criticism; we have been speaking of “in¬
trinsic probability” and of “transcriptional probability” as
though this were an ordinary question of the text. Such
language would, of course, apply in fullest measure to that
form of the interpolation hypothesis which finds in Lk. i.
34 f. an interpolation into the completed Gospel ; for in that
case we should actually be dealing with scribal transmission
in the strictest sense. But the language could really apply in
some measure also to the other forms in which the interpola¬
tion hypothesis has been held. In any case, we have in Lk. i.
34 f. an element that on one hand is in underlying harmony
with the rest of the infancy narrative and yet, on the other
hand, cannot be understood as being due to the effort of a
later writer — whether the author of Luke-Acts or someone
else — to produce that harmony by an insertion into this Pal¬
estinian narrative. Real harmony with the rest of the nar¬
rative, and superficial difficulty — these are the recognized
marks of genuineness in any passage of an ancient work.
And both these characteristics appear in Lk. i. 34 and 35.
At any rate, whatever may be thought of our use of the
terminology of textual criticism, the parallelism with the
account of the annunciation to Zacharias stamps Lk. i.
34 f. unmistakably as being an original part of the account
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 577
of the annunciation to Mary. The argument comes as near
to being actual demonstration as any argument that could
possibly appear in the field of literary criticism. It is very
clear that the two verses in question were part of the original
structure of the narrative.
But before this phase of the subject is finally left, it will be
necessary to consider the alternative view as to the extent of
the interpolation, which was suggested by Kattenbusch and
has been advocated by Weinel and others.38 According to
these scholars, not the whole of Lk. i. 34 f. constitutes the
addition to the narrative, but only the four words translated
“seeing I know not a man”39 in verse 34. If these four words
are removed, it may be argued, there is in Mary’s question no
reference to the manner in which her child is to be born; she
is puzzled merely by the greatness of her promised son, and
asks therefore, “How shall this be ?”, without at all thinking
of anything other than the son that she was to have in her ap¬
proaching marriage with Joseph. In reply — so the hypothesis
may be held to run — the angel in verse 35 points to an activity
of the Holy Spirit securing the greatness and holiness of the
son, without at all excluding the human agency in His con¬
ception in the womb ; the child will be in a physical sense the
son of Joseph and Mary; but just as the son of Zacharias
was to be filled with the Holy Spirit at the very beginning of
38 Kattenbusch himself ( Das Apostolische Symbol, ii, 1900, pp. 621 f.)
did not insist upon the hypothesis of an actual interpolation of the words
ind (LvSpa oi yivdxTKu into an underlying document, but contented himself
with arguing that without those four words the narrative would not
necessarily involve the virgin birth, and that the emphasis in the narra¬
tive is not upon the virgin birth but upon what he regarded as an inde¬
pendent idea — the activity of the Spirit in connection with the birth of
the Messiah. Weinel (“Die Auslegung des Apostolischen Glaubensbe-
kenntnisses von F. Kattenbusch und die neutestamentliche Forschung,”
in Zeitschrift fur die neutest. Wissenschaft, ii, 1901, pp. 37-39) made the
suggestion of Kattenbusch definitely fruitful for the interpolation hy¬
pothesis. J. M. Thompson ( Miracles in the New Testament, 1911, pp.
147-150) and Merx (Die vier kanonischen Evengelien, II. 2, 1905, pp.
179-181) advocate the same view. Compare the citation of the literature
in Moffatt, Introduction, 1918 (1925), p. 269.
39 tLvSpa oi yivt&aKio.
578 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
his life40, so the son of Joseph will lie fitted by the same Spirit
for a far higher function.
In comment upon this hypothesis, it may be said, in the
first place, that the hypothesis hardly accomplishes what it
undertakes to accomplish ; it hardly succeeds in removing the
supernatural conception from Lk. i. 34, 35. Surely the mini¬
mizing interpretation which Weinel advocates for verse 35 is
unnatural in the extreme. When Mary is told by the angel,
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that holy
thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God,” it
seems very improbable that no more is meant than a sanctify¬
ing action of the Spirit upon a child conceived by another
agency in the womb. Why should it be said, “The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee,” if the activity of the Spirit terminates
upon the child in the womb rather than upon Mary? Why
should not some expression like that in Lk. i. 15 — “He shall
be filled with the Holy Ghost” — be used if the work of the
Spirit in both cases is essentially the same? Perhaps, indeed,
the advocates of the hypothesis will maintain that on their
view the work of the Spirit is not the same in both cases;
perhaps they will say that in the case of John merely a sanc¬
tifying influence is meant, whereas in the case of Jesus the
Spirit, though working indeed with the human factor, be¬
comes constitutive of the very being of the child. But when
that is said we are getting back very close indeed to the view
that the Spirit’s action excludes the human father altogether.
The truth is that in verse 35 the human father is quite out of
sight ; only two factors are in view — the mother Mary and
the Spirit of God. “Conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of
the virgin Mary” is really a correct summary of that verse.
Even without the disputed words in verse 34, therefore, the
following verse, verse 35, still presupposes the virgin birth.
But if so, all ground for suspecting the words “seeing I know
not a man” disappears.
A second objection to Weinel’s hypothesis is found in the
40 Lk. i. 15.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 579
parallelism with the annunciation to Zacharias to which at¬
tention has already been called. Weinel himself performed a
very useful service by urging that parallelism as an objection
to the ordinary form of the interpolation theory, which
would remove all of verses 34 and 35. But he did not seem to
observe that it tells also against his own view. If the words,
“seeing I know not a man,” are removed from verse 34, then
there is nothing to correspond to the grounding of Zacharias’
question in verse 18. Let it not be said that we are expecting
too perfect a similarity between the two parallel accounts. On
the contrary, we recognize to the full the freshness and orig¬
inality of verses 28-38 as over against verses 11-20; there
are many details in one account that are not also in the other ;
the parallelism is by no means mechanical. But the point is
that if Mary’s grounding of her question be removed from
verse 34, it is not merely one detail that is subtracted but an
essential element in the structural symmetry of the passage.
It is really essential to the author’s manner of narrating the
annunciation to Zacharias that Zacharias’ question should
not merely indicate bewilderment in general, but should point
the way for the explanation that was to follow. It seems evi¬
dent that a similar plan is being followed in the case of the
annunciation to Mary. But that plan is broken up if the
words, “seeing I know not a man,” are not original in verse
34. Weinel’s hypothesis would force us to suppose that the
original narrator left a gap in the structure of one of his
parallel accounts, and a gap so exceedingly convenient that
when by the insertion of four words an interpolator intro¬
duced into the narrative a momentous new idea, the most
beautiful symmetry of form was the result. Surely such a
supposition is unlikely in the extreme. It is perfectly evident,
on the contrary, that the symmetry that results when Mary’s
grounding of her question is retained is due not to mere
chance or to what would be a truly extraordinary coinci¬
dence between a defect in the fundamental structure and an
interpolator’s desires, but to the original intention of the
author.
580 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
In the third place, Mary’s question in verse 34, in the short¬
ened form to which Weinel’s hypothesis reduces it, seems un¬
natural and abrupt even apart from any comparison with the
parallel account. According to Weinel, Mary said merely, in
reply to the angel’s promise: “How shall this be?” In that
form the question seems to have no point ; it is a meaningless
interruption of the angel’s speech. And it does not seem to
prepare in any intelligible way for what follows in verse 35.
No doubt there are narrators to whom such clumsiness could
be attributed; but certainly the author of Lk. i-ii was not
one of them. In this narrative, such banality would be singu¬
larly out of place. It is perfectly evident that in verse 34 the
author is preparing for verse 35 in some far more definite
and intelligible way than by the meaningless words, “How
shall this be?”; Mary’s question is plainly intended to point
the way to the special explanation that is given in the follow¬
ing verse. Thus on Weinel’s hypothesis the original narrator
would at this point have suddenly descended to banality; and
the beautiful naturalness and symmetry which now appears
in the passage would be due not to the author but to an in¬
terpolator. Who can believe that such a supposition is
correct?
Such objections would be decisive in themselves. But
there is another objection that is perhaps even more serious
still. It is found in the extraordinary restraint which Weinel’s
hypothesis is obliged to attribute to the supposed interpolator.
An interpolator, we are asked to believe, desired to introduce
into a Jewish Christian narrative of the birth of Jesus a
momentous idea — the idea of the virgin birth — which by
hypothesis was foreign to that narrative. How does he go to
work? Does he insert any express narration of the event that
he regarded as so important? Does he even mention it
plainly? Not at all. What he does is simply to insert four
words, which will cause the context into which they are in¬
serted to appear in a new light, so that now that context will
be taken as implying the virgin birth.
Where was there ever found such extraordinary restraint,
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 581
either in an ordinary interpolator who tampered with the
manuscripts of a completed book, or in an author like the
author of Luke-Acts who desired to introduce a new idea
into one of his sources? Is it not abundantly plain that if an
interpolator desired to introduce the virgin birth into the
narrative of Lk. i-ii he would have done so in far less re¬
strained and far more obvious manner than Weinel’s hypothe¬
sis requires us to suppose. On the ordinary form of the
interpolation hypothesis, which includes in the supposed in¬
sertion all of verses 34 and 35, we were called upon to admire
the extraordinary literary skill of the interpolator, which
enabled him to construct a rather extensive addition that
should be highly original in content and yet conform so
perfectly to the innermost spirit of the rest of the narrative.
On Weinel’s hypothesis, on the other hand, it is the extra¬
ordinary restraint of the interpolator which affords ground
for wonder. The surprising thing is that if the interpolator
was going to insert anything — in the interests of the virgin
birth — he did not insert far more.
We have enumerated four special objections to the hy¬
pothesis of Weinel. With the exception of the one based on
the parallelism with Lk. i. 11-20, they apply only to this
hypothesis and not also to the more usual view as to the ex¬
tent of the interpolation. That more usual view is in turn
faced by some special objections that the view of Weinel
avoids. But it must be remembered that some of the weight¬
iest objections apply to both hypotheses alike. All that we
have said regarding the plain implication of the virgin birth
in Lk. i. 27 and ii. 5, and regarding the subtler implication of
it at other points in the narrative, tells against any effort to
find in the original form of Lk. i-ii a narrative that presented
Jesus as being by ordinary generation the son of Joseph and
Mary.
What needs finally to be emphasized is that in holding the
virgin birth of Christ to be an integral part of the representa¬
tion in Lk. i-ii we are not dependent merely upon details.
At least equally convincing is a consideration of the narra-
582 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
tive as a whole. With regard to the results of such a general
consideration, it may be well now to say a final word.
In what precedes, we have laid special stress upon the par¬
allelism between the account of the annunciation to Mary
and that of the annunciation to Zacharias. That parallelism,
we observed, establishes Lk. i. 34, 35 in the clearest possible
way as belonging to the basic structure of the narrative;
the (evidently intentional) symmetry of form between the
two accounts is hopelessly marred if these verses, either as
a whole or in part, are removed.
But what now needs to be observed is that the difference
between the two accounts is at least as significant, in estab¬
lishing the original place of the virgin birth in Lk. i-ii, as is
the similarity. In fact the very similarity finds its true mean¬
ing in the emphasis which it places upon the difference.
One obvious difference, of course, is that the annunciation
of the birth of John comes to the father of the child, while
the annunciation of the birth of Jesus comes to the mother.
What is the reason for this difference ? Is the difference due
merely to chance? Is it due merely to the way in which the
tradition in the two cases happened to be handed down —
merely to the fact that, as Harnack thinks,41 the stories re¬
garding Jesus were preserved by a circle that held Mary in
special veneration and had been affected in some way by the
impression that she had made? If this latter suggestion is
adopted, we have a significant concession to the traditional
opinion, which has always been inclined to attribute the
Lucan infancy narrative, mediately or immediately, to the
mother of the Lord. Such an admission will probably not
be made by many of those who reject, as Harnack does,
the historicity of the narrative. And for those who will not
make the admission, who will not admit any special con¬
nection of the narrative with Mary or with her circle, the
central place of Mary instead of Joseph in the annunciation
scene remains a serious problem. But even if we accept
41 Harnack, Neue Untersuchungen sur Apostelgeschichte, 1911, pp.
109 f. ; English Translation, The Date of Acts, 1911, pp. 155 f.
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 583
the Marianic origin of the narrative — and do so even in a
way far more definite than is favored by Harnack — still
the unique place of Mary in the narrative requires an ex¬
planation. The point is not merely that Mary receives spe¬
cial attention — that her inmost thoughts are mentioned and
the like — but that she is given an actual prominence that
would seem unnatural if the child belonged equally to Joseph
and to her.
The fact is that we find ourselves here impaled upon the
horns of a dilemma. If, on the one hand, the narrative is
quite unhistorieal, and not based upon any tradition con¬
nected with the actual Mary, then we do not see how the nar¬
rative or the legend lying back of it, ever came — since in this
case it had full freedom of invention — to attribute such im¬
portance to the mother unless she was regarded as a parent
of the child in some sense that did not apply to Joseph. Cer¬
tainly the narrative displays no general predilection in favor
of women as over against men; for in the case of John the
Baptist the annunciation is regarded as being made to Zach-
arias, not to Elisabeth. If, therefore, it regards the relation
of Joseph to Jesus as being similar to that of Zacharias to
John, why does it not make him, like Zacharias, the recipient
of the angelic promise? So much may be said for one horn of
the dilemma. But if the other horn be chosen — if the narrator
be regarded as being bound by historical tradition actually
coming from Mary — still the prominence of Mary in the
narrative remains significant. Are we to suppose that Mary
attributed that prominence to herself without special reason?
This supposition, in view of Mary’s character, as it appears
in the narrative itself, is unlikely in the extreme.
Thus, whatever view we take of the ultimate origin of the
narrative, the prominence in it of Mary as compared with
Joseph, which is so strikingly contrasted with the prominence
of Zacharias as compared with Elisabeth, clearly points to
something specially significant in her relation to the promised
child, something which Joseph did not share. In other words
it points to the supernatural conception, which is so plainly
584 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
attested in Lk. i. 34, 35. The removal of these verses by the
advocates of the interpolation theory has really deprived us
of the key that unlocks the meaning of the narrative from
beginning to end.
There is, moreover, another way also in which the relation
between the two accounts of annunciations presupposes the
virgin birth. What sympathetic reader can fail to see that
the relation between the two accounts is a relation of climax?
It is clearly the intention of the narrator to exhibit the great¬
ness of Jesus in comparison with His forerunner, John. But
in the annunciation of the birth of John the manner of the
birth is given special prominence. The child, it is said, is to be
born of aged parents ; and around this feature a large part
of the narrative revolves. The unbelief of Zacharias and the
punishment of that unbelief are occasioned not by the pre¬
diction of later events in the life of the promised child, but
by the prediction of the wonderful manner of his birth. Are
we to suppose that in the parallel account there was nothing to
correspond to this central feature of the annunciation to
Zacharias ? Are we to suppose that after laying such special
stress upon the unusual manner of the promised birth of
John the narrator proceeded to narrate a promise of a per¬
fectly ordinary birth of Jesus ; are we to suppose that it is the
intention of the narrator that while John was born of aged
parents by a special dispensation of divine grace, Jesus was
simply the child of Joseph and Mary? No supposition, we
think, would more completely miss the point of the narrative.
Verses 36 and 37 surely provide the true key to the relation
between the two accounts ; the angel there points to the com¬
ing birth of John the Baptist from an aged mother as an
example of that omnipotence of God which is to be mani¬
fested in yet plainer fashion in the birth of Jesus. In the light
of this utterance, the whole meaning of the parallelism be¬
tween the two accounts of annunciations becomes plain. The
very similarities between the two cases are intended to set
off in all the greater plainness the stupendous difference; and
the difference concerns not merely the relative greatness of
LUCAN NARRATIVE OF THE ANNUNCIATION 585
the two children that are to be born but also the manner of
their conception in the womb. A wonderful, if not plainly
supernatural, conception in the case of John followed by a
merely natural conception in the case of Jesus, which the in¬
terpolation hypothesis requires us to find, would have seemed
to the composer of the narrative to involve a lamentable anti¬
climax. The entire structure of the narrative protests elo¬
quently against any such thing.
At this point, however, an objection may possibly be
raised. It is not an objection against our argument in itself,
but an argimientum ad hominem against our use of it. We
have insisted that there is a conscious parallelism between the
account of the annunciation to Zacharias and that of the an¬
nunciation to Mary, and that the author evidently intends to
exhibit the superiority, even in the manner of birth, that
Jesus possesses over against John. But — so the objection
might run — does not such a view of the author’s intentions
involve denial of the historicity of the narrative? If the
author was ordering his material with such freedom as to
exhibit the parallelism that we have discovered, and if he
was deliberately setting about to show the superiority of
Jesus over John, must he not, in order to pursue these ends,
have been quite free from the restraint which would have
been imposed upon him by information concerning what
actually happened to Zacharias and to Mary? In other words,
does not the artistic symmetry which we have discovered in
the narrative militate against any acceptance of its historical
trustworthiness? And since we are intending to defend its
historical trustworthiness, have we, as distinguished from
those who deny its trustworthiness, any right to that particu¬
lar argument against the interpolation theory which we have
just used.
In reply, it may be said simply that our argument has not
depended upon any particular view as to the way in which the
symmetry, upon which we have been insisting, came into
being. It would hold just as well if the author merely repro¬
duced a symmetry which was inherent in the divine ordering
586 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
of the facts, as it would if he himself constructed the sym¬
metry by free invention. In either case, the symmetry would
be intentional in his narrative. Moreover, even in a thor¬
oughly accurate narrative there is some possibility of such a
selection and ordering of the material as shall bring certain
features especially into view. A portrait, with its selection of
details, is sometimes not less truthful but more truthful than
a photograph. So in this case, the author, we think, was not
doing violence to the facts when he presented the annuncia¬
tion to Mary as in parallel with the annunciation to Zacharias.
That parallelism, we think, was inherent in the facts; and
the writer showed himself to be not merely an artist but a
true historian when he refrained from marring it.
But the point is that although the argument for the in¬
tegrity of the passage which we have based upon the parallel¬
ism holds on the view that the narrative is historical, it holds
equally well on the hypothesis that it is the product of free
invention. In either case — however the parallelism came to be
there — it certainly as a matter of fact is there ; and an inter¬
polation theory which holds that it was originally defective at
the decisive point is faced by the strongest kind of objections
that literary criticism can ever afford.
Our conclusion then is that the entire narrative in Lk. i-ii
finds both its climax and its centre in the virgin birth of
Christ. A superficial reading may lead to a contrary conclu¬
sion; but when one enters sympathetically into the inner
spirit of the narrative one sees that the virgin birth is every¬
where presupposed. The account of the lesser wonder in the
case of the forerunner, the delicate and yet significant way in
which Mary is put forward instead of Joseph, the lofty key
in which the whole narrative is pitched — all this is incompre¬
hensible without the supreme miracle of the supernatural
conception in the virgin’s womb. The interpolation hypothe¬
sis, therefore, not merely fails of proof, but (so fully as can
reasonably be expected in literary criticism) is positively dis¬
proved.
Princeton.
J. Gresham Machen.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID*
No one can form a just estimate of the influence which the
brief oracle of Nathan preserved in 2 Samuel chapter vii. has
had upon the thought of later times, without going through
the Old Testament (to say nothing now of the New) with an
ear open for the many echoes which this one clear voice has
awakened in the souls of hoping, believing men of Israel.
There is no question of priority here. All schools of criti¬
cism admit the priority and influence of our historical narra¬
tive in Samuel. Debate about it, therefore, turns not on the
relative dating, but on the absolute dating, of the voice and
its echoes. If Volz, Marti, Budde, Duhm, and the rest,
whose pronouncements became more and more positive and
sweeping during the two decades from 1890 to 1910, are
right, then the entire type of mind which rested its hopes for
Israel’s future on the coming of a glorious king of David’s
line — a “Messiah,” as he is commonly termed — belonged to
the period of the Exile or subsequent to it. In that case it be¬
longed to a time when the Davidic dynasty had played its
historical part, and had already passed as truly into the realm
of yesterday as had the Ark, Solomon’s Temple, or the
twelve-tribe nation. But if these critics are wrong, then every
passage in psalmody or prophecy, which reveals the practical
use the people of Israel before the Exile made of this hope in
David’s covenant, contributes to the cumulative proof that
that covenant is an historical fact and that our account of it
in Samuel is credible.
It would manifestly be impossible, within the limits of a
single article, to state and answer the arguments relied on to
prove that the many passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other
prophets, and in the Psalter, which refer to the Davidic Cove¬
nant, are in reality exilic or post-exilic. We shall have to con¬
tent ourselves with rehearsing some of these echoes from
prophet, psalmist, and historian, calling attention to their
* The substance of this article was delivered in Miller Chapel, October
13, 1921, as the fourth of five lectures on “The House of David,” consti¬
tuting the Stone Lectures for the year 1921-2.
588 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
number, distribution, and variety, and pointing out that the
burden of proof — not assertion, or conjecture, but proof —
rests upon those who would uproot the whole growth and
transplant it to another age than the one from which it has
come down to us on the authority of uniform and abundant
testimony.
We begin with the Book of Amos, that prophet who, to¬
gether with his contemporary Hosea, belongs to the North¬
ern Kingdom and to the 8th century b.c. Amos sees the
climax of his predictions in the coming of a “day,” when, as
he makes Jehovah say, “I will raise up the tabernacle of
David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof ; and I
will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old ;
that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the na¬
tions that are called by my name, saith Jehovah that doeth
this.”1
We notice here, in general, the figure of a building as the
literary vehicle for the representation of a dynasty’s existence
and fortunes, just as in the basic passage in 2 Sam. vii., where
Jehovah promises to “build” for David a “house.” To be
sure, the word sukkah, a booth or tabernacle, is used here in
place of bayith, a house, which appears there, but this change
is clearly due to the prophet’s desire to emphasize the idea
of the dynasty’s ruinous condition — the same desire that
prompted him to add to it the descriptive participle hannophe-
leth, meaning “in a falling condition” or “about to fall to the
ground,” as well as those other strong words in the subse¬
quent clauses, “breaches” and “ruins.” Note also the words
“raise up” and “build” both here and in Samuel : the only
difference is that here it is a repairing or rebuilding, while
there it is a building ab initio. And finally, it should not escape
our notice that Amos refers to “the days of old” as the stand¬
ard of comparison. Perhaps he uses this phrase in an absolute
sense, in allusion to the centuries (roughly, two and a half)
that had already elapsed since David’s day — as long a period
1 Amos ix. nf.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID 589
of time as separates our own day from, say, the settlement of
Philadelphia by William Penn. Perhaps he uses it in a relative
sense, as he in spirit places himself in “that day” of restora¬
tion of which he is prophesying. In either case the argument
holds good : David’s age stands out in Amos’ time as an age
in the past when a standard was set for the utmost future
prosperity. Rebuilding will be a restoration of what was then
built. Thus the impression which this entire prediction makes
on us is that it was framed in an allusive fashion on the model
of 2 Sam. vii., not only by a prophet who knew, but for a
people who likewise knew — and cherished — the oracle of
Nathan to David.
We turn to Hosea, and with him reach more abundant
material. Amos was a man of Judah, sent to preach among
the northern tribes. His acquaintance with, and zeal for, the
Davidic House, and his association of it with the brighter
side of his prophecies, may therefore be attributed to this
fundamentally political circumstance. Indeed, Winckler has
gone so far as to represent Amos as King Ahaz’ agent pro¬
vocateur, to stir up in the Northern Kingdom sentiment for
the reunion of Israel under the Davidic line.2 While this view
has not prevailed, even among radical critics, it may serve to
remind us that we must place Hosea on a somewhat different
basis from Amos : Hosea was a man of the North, and when
he gives to Judah and Judah’s dynasty the pre-eminence,
either in present rights or in future hopes, it means that a
tradition of permanent Davidic supremacy over all Israel was
a heritage of the entire nation.
What then does Hosea say? In predicting the ultimate
blessings, which lie beyond the dark days impending over
Israel, Hosea more than once makes his climax a reunion of
Judah and Israel under one sovereign. The first time he does
not name that sovereign : to the people he addressed this was
obviously unnecessary. He says : “The children of Judah and
the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they
2 Winckler, Hugo, Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellungen, Teil I,
pp. 91-95.
590 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
shall appoint themselves one head, and shall go up from
the land.”3 The second time he is specifying, in a list of some
length, the things which God’s people shall enjoy in “the
latter days,” succeeding upon those dark days in which they
are to be deprived of all privileges, real or fancied, which they
now enjoy. For those “many days” just ahead they shall be —
among other things — “without king and without prince.”
But, “afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek
Jehovah their God, and David their king, and shall come with
fear unto Jehovah and to his goodness in the latter days.”4
The significance of these passages is that they individualize
the ruler of the House of David under the name of David,
and that they place the return to David alongside the return
to Jehovah’s House, as jointly constituting that renewed
unity which marks the restoration of the old United Mon¬
archy, with its Davidic sovereign enthroned beside the
Temple of Jehovah. In 2 Sam. vii. the building of that Temple
and the building of David’s house are put side by side ; here
in Hosea the place where Jehovah manifests His “goodness”
as the objective of the nation’s return stands side by side with
a throne, the occupant of which bears the name of David
because the heir to all of David’s “mercies,” and belongs to
the entire nation — “David, their king.”
Just as Amos and Hosea form a pair, both exercising their
ministry in the Northern Kingdom near its fall in the 8th
century, so Micah and Isaiah form a pair, belonging to the
latter part of the same century, but preaching in the Southern
Kingdom, and to it so far as the primary aim of their message
is concerned. Apart from many other points of contact, as we
should expect, Isaiah and Micah have in common that re¬
markable passage about “the mountain of the Lord’s house,”
to which “all peoples shall flow in the latter days,” there to
learn truth, practise righteousness, and enjoy prosperity.5 But
inasmuch as no earthly Vicegerent of Jehovah is here alluded
3 Hos. i. 11.
4 Hos. iii. 4f.
6 Is. ii. 2-4; Mic. iv. 1-3.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID 591
to, we shall not insist upon the witness of this passage to the
Davidic promise, even though Zion — at once “the city of
David” and “the city of Jehovah” — is expressly made the
scene and seat of the sovereignty there exercised.
But in Micah we are able to trace the progress of the
prophet’s thought back from this “city of David,” Zion, to
that earlier “city of David,” Bethlehem, whence the Davidic
House took its rise. “But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah,” says
the prophet in a passage familiar to every reader of the
Gospel of Matthew, “which art little to be among the thou¬
sands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that
is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old,
from everlasting.”6 The house of David, heir to the promise
of eternal rule, started in a humble town; and it is God’s
pleasure that, although the dynasty which sprung thence be
humbled to a common station — such a station as Jesse, the
pre-royal, private citizen of Bethlehem, held — it shall never¬
theless produce the ultimate Ruler after God’s heart (“unto
me”). Great as the contrast was between the humble position
of Bethlehem among the proud cities of Judah, and the ex¬
alted station of the line of kings it sent forth, greater still
shall be the contrast between the humble, nameless, human
parentage of that Coming One, Son of David, and the eternal
background of His divine origin. For the “goings forth”
(whether the word refers to place or to circumstance) of
that Figure shall be of double character : a going forth out of
Bethlehem because of the Davidic family; and a going forth
out of his eternal pre-existence because divine.
This same double character appears in the following sen¬
tences, where Micah continues with his reference, first to the
human motherhood of the Messiah (“until the time that she
who travaileth hath brought forth”),7 and then to his divine
prerogatives: “He shall stand, and shall feed (that is, rule,
from the common metaphor of the flock and its shepherd for
a people and its ruler) in the strength of Jehovah, in the
majesty of the name of Jehovah his God : and they (his flock,
6 Mic. v. 2 (Heb. 1). Comp. Matt. ii. 6.
7 Ibid., ver. 3.
592 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
his people) shall abide; for now shall he be great unto the
ends of the earth. And this (Person) shall be peace” — as it
were, peace incarnate.8 And although in the following verses
Micah continues in a warlike strain, recounting the martial
exploits of “the remnant of Jacob” — the future Israel, puri¬
fied and converted, under the leadership of this Figure — it is
all simply an attempt to depict, in impressionistic strokes,
with brilliant coloring and striking contrast and composition,
the basis of the Messianic peace, won for Israel and by Israel
in a world which divides into two camps — its enemies and its
friends, the enemies conquered and annihilated, the friends
saved and blessed.9
Even if the prophet Micah stood alone, and we had only
this fifth chapter of his brief book, to carry the predictions of
2 Sam. vii. from the level of Flosea up to the level of Jere¬
miah and the New Testament, still we could not fairly
question the word of revelation which Micah has transmitted
to us out of the 8th century. Wonderful as it is, it belongs at
just that point in the development of the implications of
David’s covenant. Yet we have in fact a mighty confirmation,
both of our interpretation of Micah and of the genuineness
of his Messianic utterances, in the contemporary and kindred
predictions of Isaiah. To attempt to cover these predictions
adequately in the space at our disposal would manifestly be
impossible. But we must look in turn, at least briefly, at three
passages of Isaiah, which are of capital importance for this
story of the House of David.
First, in his eleventh chapter, we find Isaiah describing the
Messiah in His characteristics, personal and official, and in
His merciful, just, victorious, and peaceful reign.10 The des¬
ignation he gives this Ruler, first at the beginning and then
again at the end of that description, is “a shoot out of the
stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots” ; and again “the
root of Jesse.” When we put these phrases alongside Micah’s
8 Ibid., vs. 4, 5a.
9 Ibid., vs. 5R9.
10 Is. xi. i-io.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID
593
address to “little Bethlehem” — the humble source of the
glorious Monarch — we see the identity of thought underly¬
ing both. For it is not David, the king, but Jesse, the humble
citizen of Bethlehem, who is singled out by the prophet to
describe the source of the Messiah: Jesse is the root (and
apparently the unsightly, cut-down stump or stock), which
shall bud and branch and grow again into beauty and glory —
a glory greater than anything yet realized — when He comes
forth from it in whom Jehovah shall rule.
The second passage is in that seventh chapter of Isaiah,
to which we have had occasion to refer more than once in the
sketch of the history of David’s House.11 When Ahaz, threat¬
ened with dethronement, refused to accept God’s way of faith
and relied on the King of Assyria, Isaiah gave to him, for a
sign that his predictions were from Jehovah who is faithful,
the birth of the child whom he names Immanuel — which
means, “God with us.” Familiar to us in its wording on ac¬
count of Matthew’s quotation of it in his birth-narrative,12
it is not commonly grasped as clearly as it should be when
it is known only from Matthew. One needs to study it in
Isaiah vii., in its remarkable setting, and to compare it es¬
pecially with Micah, chapter v., in order to feel the force and
import of its prediction about the Messiah.
“Hear ye now, O house of David,” cries the prophet, ad¬
dressing the whole “House of David” as the collective heir
to the promise in 2 Sam. vii. — “behold, a virgin shall con¬
ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”13
So reads our American Revised Version ; though the original
calls for the rendering “ the virgin,” since the noun has the
definite article prefixed, and the word is broad enough to
mean any young woman whether married or not. Why is
this young woman definite, not only to Isaiah, but equally, to
all appearance, to his auditors, whereas to modern inter¬
preters she has been so very indefinite ? Clearly, because, like
11 See art. The Davidic Dynasty, in this Review, April, 1927.
12 Matt. i. 23.
13 Is. vii. 14.
594
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
the woman alluded to by Micah as “she that travaileth”
(properly, the woman about to bring forth a child), this
woman was definite precisely through what is said about her,
both here and there : namely, that she is the mother of the
Messiah. Her name ? Who knows ? Who cares, in comparison
with what she does? This King of David’s line must have a
mother : this is she. If the Gospel story seems to any to lay too
great stress on the word parthenos, by which this Hebrew
noun had centuries before been rendered into the Greek, we
ought not to overlook the justification for this which lies here
in Isaiah’s language, though not in the word we render
“virgin.” It lies in the exclusive prominence of motherhood
here, just as in Micah v., together with the absence of all
reference to human fatherhood.
Strange, inexplicable circumstance, to such as are unwill¬
ing to see in this a pre-adumbration of a Gospel fact! It was
precisely their descent in the male line, father to son, and
father to son, through four and a half centuries, that con¬
stituted the proudest boast of the royal dynasty of Jerusalem.
True, the mother of each heir to the throne was generally
mentioned in connection with his accession, but this was
because of the peculiarly proud position of the queen-mother
at the Davidic court, from Bathsheba onward. Yet here there
is something more and something different. That Son of
David, whose name of Immanuel seems to stamp upon Him,
with its symbolic significance, His divine origin, takes His
human origin through “that young woman” who bears Him
— the woman whom the divine purpose selects for this sole,
supreme honor — to be (what Elizabeth calls Mary) “the
mother of my Lord.”14
14 Luke i. 43. The most recent developments in criticism seem to justify
the expectation that such exegetical vagaries as Duhm’s “any woman
whatever that is about to bring forth” have seen their day. Kittel ( Die
hellenistische Mysterienreligion und das Alte Testament, p. 7) does not
hesitate to call such interpretations by Duhm, Marti, and their school,
“ephemeral errors.” While Kittel’s thesis does not require from him a
positive verdict as to the genuineness of all three “Messianic” passages of
Isaiah, it is plain that the ideas with which he and Gressmann, Sellin, and
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID
595
Rather than dwell longer on implications of the name Im¬
manuel, we turn to the third of the three passages in Isaiah
which we are to consider, since in it we shall find the same
implications more fully and unmistakably set forth. That is
the passage in the ninth chapter, familiar to us, not like
the seventh chapter from New Testament quotation, but
from the marvellous — one is almost tempted to say, the in¬
spired — use made of it by Handel in his “Messiah.” “For
unto us a child is born,” exults Isaiah, as he thus justifies all
his extravagant predictions of light, joy, victory, and peace
that precede, “unto us a son is given; and the government
shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and
upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with
justice and righteousness from henceforth even for ever.”15
Again the birth of a child ! It is a son of David, born to sit
on David’s throne. “For ever” — again that old refrain of
2 Sam. vii. rings out, as the climax of this prophecy by
Nathan’s greater successor. The kingdom which David
founded, this child shall establish and uphold. It shall go on
increasing, for his mighty shoulder can bear the weight of a
world’s government. And what He is shall be summed up in
the symbolic name — His throne-name : for the four elements
that make it up, consisting each of two words bound closely
together, reveal the figure of the Messiah, a multum in paruo,
a cameo of the Christ. “Wonderful Counsellor” — One unique
in His ability to guide His people by means of His extra¬
ordinary, His superhuman wisdom. “Mighty God” — that
divine Leader who in the past had striven for His people and
would yet show Himself their champion against all foes in
the other comparative-religionists are operating find no obstacle in the
Isaianic authorship of these passages; and as for their interpretation —
they defend their “Messianic” character as stoutly as any of the older or
younger conservative critics.
“Is. ix. 6f. (Heb. sf.).
596 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
days to come. “Everlasting Father” — none other, in essence,
than the timeless, ageless, eternal God in human guise.
“Prince of Peace” — exalted on a throne, of which Solomon,
the peaceful king, once occupied the type, but before which
shall come to bow, not only Sheba’s queen, but every prince
of earth, since He is “King of them that reign as kings and
Lord of them that rule as lords” and “the kingdom of this
world shall become the kingdom of Jehovah and of His
Messiah.”16
When we pass on from the age of Micah and Isaiah to
that of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we find the whole background
changed — that background of their present upon which their
predictions of the Messiah and His age are projected. Not¬
ably, the representatives of the Davidic dynasty on the throne
of Judah during its last century of existence were, with the
sole exception of Josiah, unworthy of the house to which
they belonged, of the promises to which they were heirs, and,
above all, of the God whose earthly vicegerents they were
within His kingdom. Jeremiah’s ministry fell, in part, within
the reign of Josiah, but most of it was exercised in the times
of his miserable successors. It included the successive sieges of
the city by the Chaldaeans, its final fall, the deportations, and
the earlier years of the Exile. Ezekiel, himself among the
earlier deportees, gave utterance to the prophecies in the firsf
half of his book before the final fall of Jerusalem, to the re¬
mainder after the whole nation was sharing with him the ex¬
perience of exile. Since the Exile is the latest period to which
criticism of even the most radical type has reduced the date
of 2 Sam. vii., we not only need go no further than Jeremiah
and Ezekiel in assembling the prophetic echoes of it, but even
with these two prophets we find ourselves at a time admittedly
influenced by “Messianism” — as that tendency is called which
exalts the promised king of David’s line into the center of the
national hopes. Yet inasmuch as this tendency, whatever its
pre-prophetic source, is supposed to be found in the very
process of absorption into prophetic doctrine precisely in
16 Rev. xi. 15; xix. 16, &c.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID
597
these two prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we ought to at¬
tend to their utterances also, if we are to have any fair notion
of what pre-exilic Messianism contained.
Two companion passages in Jeremiah, xxiii. 5, 6 and
xxxiii. 15-26, hold out to his people the promise that after the
days of their punishment are over God’s changeless purpose
of grace shall be accomplished, in spite of men’s faithlessness,
in the establishment of His own righteous rule among them.
In the former passage the promise comes at the end of a long
series of prophecies concerning the successive princes of
David’s line under whom Jeremiah had exercised his own
ministry. In contrast to Josiah, who is praised for his justice
and mercy, his successors are condemned as reprobates by
their God ; and after a general statement that God will punish
the worthless shepherds of His flock and substitute for them
good shepherds, Jeremiah continues with more detail : “Be¬
hold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise unto
David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal
wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the
land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called: Je¬
hovah our righteousness.”
In the second passage, too long to quote here in its en¬
tirety, Jeremiah introduces his promise of the Messiah’s
gracious, righteous rule as the climax to his predictions about
the land and its fortunes. The symbolic action of burying the
deed of sale, chapter xxxii., signified that even the Exile,
which the prophet was announcing as imminent and ines¬
capable, was not to write finis across the history of God’s
people in the Holy Land. And with this for his starting-point
he goes on to comfort those who sorely needed comfort in
this day of gloom — himself included. “Is anything too hard
for me?” asks Jehovah of the despairing prophet, who ex¬
postulates with his God on the inconsistency of that symbolic
act with all the rest of what has been revealed to him. I shall
destroy as I have said; but I shall also build up. After the
deluge, the remnant. This remnant I will Myself gather out
598 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
of the lands to this their ancient covenant-home, and there
shall be “abundance of peace and truth.” Personal renewal
for the repentant sinner, and national restoration for a chas¬
tened nation, will be followed by prosperity and the joy and
praise that befit it. And, as the climax of all, that phase of
My covenant which consists in the promise of a righteous
Ruler for ever for My people, shall not be forgotten : “In
those days, and at that time, saith Jehovah, will I cause a
Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he
shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. . . . For
thus saith Jehovah, David shall never want a man to sit upon
the throne of the house of Israel. . . . Thus saith Jehovah,
If my covenant of day and night stand not, if I have not ap¬
pointed the ordinances of heaven and earth ; then will I also
cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so
that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Bearing the fundamental passage in 2 Samuel in mind, we
ought to note two points in this prophecy. ( 1 ) Precisely that
feature of the Messianic King is here emphasized, which
connects Him with the House of David : He is a Branch
(more properly, a Scion, or Shoot) of David’s stock. From
this time onward the word branch came to have more and
more the character of a technical term for the Messiah;
Zechariah uses it as His actual name.17 Jeremiah himself, like
Hosea. calls the Messiah directly by the name of his fore¬
father : “David.” He also gives him, as Isaiah does, a sym¬
bolic name, based not upon His origin but upon His character
or office: “Jehovah our righteousness.” When we remember
that the throne-name of the last king of David’s line in
Jerusalem was Zedekiah, which means righteousness of
Jehovah, we can hardly doubt that the name J ehovah-zidh-
qenu was constructed by Jeremiah to suggest that the Mes¬
siah was to be all that Zedekiah should have been but was
not. And if in chapter xxxiii. the prophet applies his svm-
17 Zech. iii. 8 ; vi. 12.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID
599
bolic name not to the Messiah but to Jerusalem or Judah,18
we should observe that the context is here concerned, as we
have just seen, with the land and the city rather than with its
kings, and that Isaiah had long before declared that Jerusa¬
lem in the day of its Messianic salvation should be called
’Ir-h-azzedheq, that is, “the city of righteousness.”19 The
moral character of its king shall “in that day” become also
the moral quality of His people : in New Testament phrase¬
ology, “We shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he
is.”20
(2) It is a covenant which binds Jehovah to the perform¬
ance of His promise of a Messiah, as surely as He has cove¬
nanted not to disturb the fixed order of Nature, the days and
seasons and years. And this covenant, made with David,
“His servant,” at an historical point of time, is parallel in
every respect to the earlier covenant with the patriarchs that
their seed should be His people “for ever.” (Compare Jer.
xxxi. 35-37 with 2 Sam. vii. 24). And in connection with
this latter comparison, which puts the relation of the cove¬
nant-keeping Jehovah on the one hand, and Israel and David
on the other hand, upon an identical footing of election, of
salvation, and of eternity, this further fact should not be
lost sight of : that Jeremiah (xxx. 21 f.) expressly ascribes to
this Messianic Prince a priestly function as Mediator: “Their
prince,” he writes, “Shall be of themselves, and their ruler
shall be from the midst of them; and I will cause him to
draw near, and he shall approach unto me : for who is he that
hath had boldness to approach unto me? saith Jehovah. And
ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.” “Taken from
among men,” as the author of Hebrews writes, in describing
the high priest’s status and function,21 this Prince will repre¬
sent those men, sinners as they are, in their relation to God :
for them, who dare not approach Jehovah’s holy majesty, he
1S Jer. xxxiii. 16.
19 Is. i. 26.
20 1 John iii. 2.
21 Heb. v. 1.
6oo
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
draws near to mediate, by divine appointment, with divine
favor, and, as a result, a rebellious, reprobate nation again
becomes Jehovah’s people, and an offended God becomes re¬
conciled and deigns to call Himself “their God.”
In Ezekiel there are two passages which demand mention,
before we close this list of pre-exilic and exilic allusions to
the Messiah's person and work. In his 34th chapter Ezekiel
develops more completely than it is developed anywhere else
in Scripture save by our Lord in the 10th chapter of John’s
Gospel, that figure of the flock and the shepherds, so common
in both Testaments in its briefer forms of application. It is
Jehovah’s gracious purpose to destroy the evil shepherds who
have neglected or abused His flock, and Himself to save and
heal and tend the sheep that now are “lost” or “driven away”
or “broken” or “sick.” But in verse 23 God announces His
purpose to “set up one shepherd over them.” “He shall feed
them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he
shall be their shepherd. And I, Jehovah, will be their God,
and my servant David prince among them. I, Jehovah, have
spoken it.” Then the chapter closes with a figurative picture
of the blessings that shall come to the flock under this bene¬
ficent treatment, and in its last verses expressly interprets the
whole figure as a parable of Jehovah and Israel in their
mutual relations.
Here again we find this kingly Figure called by the name
of his father David. Again it is the whole nation over which
he is to reign. Again, as repeatedly in 2 Sam. vii., David is
termed by Jehovah “my servant.” And again we have the
association of this figure of the shepherd with the Messiah : is
it fanciful to trace this also to 2 Sam. vii? For there, in the
words of Nathan, the judges22 who preceded David as Israel’s
rulers were the “shepherds” commanded by God to “feed”
His people; and as for David, “God,” says Nathan, “took
thee, David, from the sheepcote, from following the sheep,
that thou shouldest be prince (the word is leader — quite suit-
22 See marginal note on 2 Sam. vii. 7. The text in Chronicles is un¬
doubtedly correct.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID
601
able for the shepherd as leader of his flock) over my people,
over Israel.”
Chapter xxxvii of Ezekiel is the familiar prophecy about
the Valley of Dry Bones. Upon these dry bones descends the
spirit of the Lord, so that the dead arise and live again. No
more shall the scattered nation remain as in the grave of its
exile : it shall come together and God’s Spirit will breathe
into it the breath of life. It shall become one nation again. It
shall return to its homeland. And over it — who is to reign
over it? “My servant David,” says the prophet (ver. 24),
“shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shep¬
herd . . . and they shall dwell in the land that I have given
unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers dwelt ; and they
shall dwell therein, they, and their children, and their chil¬
dren’s children, for ever : and David my servant shall be
their prince for ever. . . . My tabernacle also shall be with
them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
This Messianic passage in xxxvii. leads up to Ezekiel’s
climax — the vision of God’s sanctuary among His people —
which occupies chapters xl-xlviii. And although it has been
objected that the Prince of Israel who appears in that vision
does not play a role quite worthy of the Davidic Messiah,
but represents an altered attitude of Ezekiel, toward the end
of his ministry, with respect to Messianic hopes, there is in
fact no evidence that those chapters come from a date sub¬
stantially later than this 37th chapter. And in any case the
prophet would hardly have left side by side in his published
book such conflicting views — the evidence of a wavering at¬
titude on so important a subject as the Davidic dynasty
and the Messianic King. We feel rather that the whole
book should be taken together, the allusions to the Prince
in xl.-xlviii. being treated as intended to deal only with
this Person’s relation to sanctuary, sacrifice, and land,
and the prophet’s entire volume being allowed to tell its
whole story collectively. Certainly in chap, xxxvii. we have
the old familiar features of 2 Sam. vii. repeated : the name
“David,” linking the Messiah thus to the ancient dynasty
602 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
and its promises; “my servant,” as on the lips of Nathan and
David; the unity of the whole people under one sovereign;
the “shepherd”; the “covenant”; “for ever”; and, with no
thought of such incongruity as critics have professed to see
in Samuel, God’s permanent sanctuary “for ever” standing
side by side with the Prince’s throne.
For the same reason that we stop with the Exile in this
review of the prophets, we may dismiss the Psalms with but
a few words. Everyone who knows and loves the 2nd Psalm,
the 72nd, the noth, or any one of half-a-dozen more in the
Psalter, which deal with the king who rules in Zion, is aware
of the powerful influence which 2 Sam. vii. has had upon the
imagination of Israel’s poets. With the depth and beauty of
feeling which the poetic spirit lends to a surpassingly grandi¬
ose theme, all the elements of Jehovah’s promise to David
through Nathan are embodied in these religious lyrics: the
“sonship” of this king in Zion ; his divine throne, might, com¬
mission, prerogative, destiny; the universal scope and eternal
duration of his dominion ; the moral basis on which his sway
is founded ; the prophetic and priestly, as well as regal, func¬
tions he exercises; the absolute and indissoluble identity of
his cause with the cause of Jehovah in the earth as well as in
Israel.
Psalms lxxxix. and cxxxii. are, in fact, paraphrases of
Nathan’s oracle : the former as the basis for an appeal to God
to deliver Israel from its afflictions; the latter to reflect
greater glory thereby upon Zion, as at once the city of David,
the seat of his perpetual dominion, and the city of Jehovah,
where stood the sanctuary.
But other psalms are none the less footed in the same
oracle. At the head of them all stands the brief, obscure, but
charming lyric, contained, not in the Psalter, but in 2 Samuel,
chapter xxiii., and entitled “the last words of David.” Criti¬
cism has no adequate internal ground for denying its Davidic
authorship,23 which it claims, not in a separate prefixed title
33 The essay of O. Procksch, Die letsten Worte Davids, in the volume
of Alttestamentliche Studien published in 1913 in honor of Kittel’s
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID 603
merely, like the titles of the psalms in the Psalter, but in the
body of the poem, bound there by the rhythmic structure of
its first stanza, and stressed by the use of no less than three
descriptive parallels. Thus,
David, the son of Jesse, saith,
And the man who was raised on high saith,
The anointed of the God of Jacob,
And the sweet psalmist of Israel.
In estimating the value of this song for the purpose of our
inquiry, it is by no means necessary to establish the personal,
strictly Messianic reference in the third and fourth verses,
where David sings of
One that ruleth over men righteously,
That ruleth in the fear of God.
For even if this be merely an introduction to the poetic de¬
scription of those blessings which accompany the reign of
such a pious and upright king — of any such king — as given
in the succeeding verses, still we have in verse 5 an unmis¬
takable and universally admitted allusion to 2 Sam. vii.
For is not my house so with God?24
Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,
Ordered in all things, and sure:
For it is all my salvation, and all my desire,
Although he maketh it not to grow.
It is true, this language is obscure, because it is epigrammatic,
allusive, lyrical in a high degree— though not more so than
might be expected with the theme, the author, and the occa¬
sion. Nevertheless, there can be but one background for the
association together of the ideas here assembled : “David’s
sixtieth birthday, may be regarded as a turning-point in the history of
critical opinion on 2 Sam. xxiii. He introduces his sane and valuable
critique of the poem with these words : “Today it is attributed to David
by scarcely any exegetes and is transferred generally to the age of the
psalms after the Exile; only Klostermann upholds its genuineness, and
Gressmann advocates at least the Davidic age. In the following study the
effort will be made to restore this wonderful poem as a gem to the
crown of the poet-king.” At the conclusion he permits himself a short
review of what he calls “echoes,” corresponding to the substance of this
article, and finding their source in 2 Sam. vii.
24 This line according to the margin of ARV.
604 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
house,” God, a covenant, eternity; and, we may add, in view
of the prophetic development — “make to grow,” since this is
the same word as was to yield later the symbolic name of
Messiah, “The Branch.”
This review of the Old Testament echoes of 2 Sam. vii.
would not be complete, if we were to say nothing of the
references to it in the historical books. We have seen how
Wellhausen himself at first refrained from mutilating the
orade of Nathan by exscinding verse 13 of the passage in
2 Sam. vii., because held back by the consideration of 1 Kings
v. 5 (Heb. 19), as a witness to its genuineness.25 Later he
was ready to do what all his followers have since done : to
discredit the evidence of the Books of Kings and so to attain
the desired end — the rejection of 2 Sam. vii. 13. But it is very
important to realize that 1 Kings v. 5 by no means stands
alone. It is merely one member of a series of passages, run¬
ning through all the Books of Kings and Chronicles, which
testify not only to the view of their respective authors con¬
cerning David’s interest in the erection of a permanent
Temple in Jerusalem, but also to the accepted tradition in
Judah that on the occasion when David proposed to build
such a Temple God promised to him perpetual sovereignty
over His people. Let us rapidly scan this series.
At the time of Solomon’s accession the aged David, in his
satisfaction that his will has been carried out and fratricidal
war avoided in determining the succession to the throne, cries
out, “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, who hath given
one to sit on my throne this day, mine eyes even seeing it”
(1 Kings i. 48). He marvelled at the unexpected pleasure of
living to see with his own eyes the fulfilment in its first stage
of that eternal covenant which Jehovah had made with his
house. And when he addresses Solomon (ii. 2-4), he repeats
in paraphrase (ver. 4) the substance of God’s promise to his
house, as given in 2 Sam. vii. 14-16, saying, “that Jehovah
may establish his word which he spake concerning me, say-
25 See art. The Davidic Covenant in this Review, July 1927.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID 605
ing, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me
in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there
shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel.”
Solomon’s own pronouncements, in the same chapter, after
he is seated on his throne and is determining the fate of
Adonijah and Shimei, show amidst their complacency a per¬
fect consciousness of the oracle on which his house rests its
claim and confidence : note especially the phrase, “Who hath
made me a house, as he promised” (ver. 24).
The exchange of messages between Solomon and the King
of Tyre furnished the occasion for that distinct allusion to
Nathan’s oracle which has already been referred to several
times. “Thou knowest,” says Solomon to his father’s ally,
“how that David my father could not build a house for the
name of Jehovah his God for the wars which were about him
on every side, until Jehovah put them under the soles of his
feet. But now Jehovah my God hath given me rest on every
side; there is neither adversary, nor evil occurrence. And,
behold, I purpose to build a house for the name of Jehovah
my God, as Jehovah spake unto my father, saying, Thy son,
whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build
the house for my name.”26 This is an unusually full reference
to the historical situation in Samuel, and even to its language
and connection. Kohler observes with perfect propriety, “If
Solomon says to King Hiram that his father had been hin¬
dered from erecting a temple by his continual wars, this is
because he did not care to impart the more inward reasons
to the heathen prince.”
After Solomon had begun to build, he was reminded
afresh of the original connection between the proposal to
build a Temple and God’s promise to the Davidic House
through Nathan in these words: “Concerning this house
which thou art building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes,
and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments
to walk in them; then I will establish my word with thee,
which I spake unto David thy father” (1 Kings vi. 12).
26 1 Kings v. 3-5 (Heb. 17-19).
6o6
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
When the house was dedicated, Solomon’s blessing (viii.
15-20) rehearses much of what Nathan had spoken to David,
and concludes with this complacent remark: “Jehovah hath
established his word that he spake ; for I am risen up in the
room of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as
Jehovah promised, and have built the house for the name of
Jehovah, the God of Israel.” Then, immediately afterwards,
in the dedicatory prayer, Solomon begins from the same
starting-point of faith and praise: “O Jehovah, the God of
Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on earth
beneath; who keepest covenant and lovingkindness with thy
servants, that walk before thee with all their heart; who hast
kept with thy servant David my father that which thou didst
promise him : yea, thou spakest with thy mouth, and hast ful¬
filled it with thy hand, as it is this day. Now therefore, O
Jehovah, the God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my
father that which thou hast promised him, saying, There
shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of
Israel; if only thy children take heed to their way, to walk
before me as thou hast walked before me. Now therefore, O
God of Israel, let thy word, I pray thee, be verified, which
thou spakest unto thy servant David my father” (vs. 23-26).
And at the conclusion of the festival of dedication, we are
told, the people “went unto their tents joyful and glad of
heart for all the goodness that Jehovah had showed unto
David his servant, and to Israel his people.”27 Why to
“David his servant” rather than to “Solomon his servant,”
unless with allusion to that covenant with David which was
bound up in their minds with this Temple and which was
regarded by all as on a par with the divine covenant with
Israel ?
In the narrative of a special revelation of Jehovah to
Solomon contained in the next chapter (1 Kings ix. 4, 5),
Jehovah attaches directly to His promise of permanent ac¬
ceptance of the new Temple as His dwelling-place a promise
27 1 Kings viii. 66.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID 60 7
of eternal sovereignty for Solomon and his house, provided
only that he and his seed shall be loyal and obedient — precisely
the order of thought in 2 Sam. vii., and expressed in language
reminiscent of that chapter when it does not actually quote
it verbally.
When in his later life Solomon was rebuked for the idol¬
atrous practices tolerated for the sake of his heathen wives,
the divine message of rebuke is tempered by reminiscences of
the promise to David : “In thy days I will not do it, for David
thy father’s sake : but I will rend it out of the hand of thy
son. Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom ; but I
will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant’s sake,
and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.” It is the
sanctuary in Jerusalem, of course, to which the last clause
refers: again there is the same association of the Temple and
the promise to David.
The terms in which Ahijah the prophet announces to
Jeroboam his distinguished future (1 Kings xi. 31-39) are
not only full of allusions to the analogous promise to David
in 2 Sam. vii., but the conditional character of the promise to
Jeroboam’s house is almost as striking a witness to the
content of the Davidic covenant as a quotation of that cove¬
nant could be. And after Jeroboam has written his record in
sin the same prophet is sent to announce the doom of his
short-lived house in language equally reminiscent of the
Davidic covenant (xiv. 7-10).
All down through the long history of David’s royal line,
allusion is constantly made to the special favor of Jehovah
which the founder of the house had enjoyed, whether by way
of contrast between the moral character and religious fidelity
of David and some unworthy successor, or by way of a plea
for deliverance or an explanation of deliverance at times
when the fortunes of the house were at the lowest ebb. And
it is the rule, rather than the exception, to find in such pas¬
sages that the author associates the persistence of the regnant
dynasty and the inviolability of the city and sanctuary in the
same way that they are associated in 2 Sam. vii. The Books
6o8
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
of Kings are full of these “echoes of the covenant’’ with
David.
Although we should find the same testimony duplicated, or
rather, multiplied and enlarged, in the Books of Chronicles,
it is unnecessary for us to submit it separately as evidence,
inasmuch as “the Chronicler” is admittedly a post-exilic
writer. While he undoubtedly had valuable sources that were
independent of anything now preserved to us, nevertheless he
belonged to a time and a circle wherein everything Davidic
was of peculiar interest, and his specific testimony to this
oracle is swallowed up in the general witness he bears to
David’s peculiar relation to Jehovah’s service and sanctuary.
Inasmuch as every critic of the Old Testament has his own
principial attitude towards that general witness, the evidence
of the Books of Chronicles must be regarded in this matter as
a question by itself.
We have now completed the review of what we have called
the echoes of the Davidic covenant. Only such a review,
lengthy as it must be even at the briefest, can leave on the
mind the due impression of mass, variety, and wide distribu¬
tion. It is scarcely too much to say of it that it is scattered
all through the Old Testament from the time of David down.
Admittedly influenced by the narrative in 2 Sam. vii., which
purports to give the historical setting of the covenant, all this
mass of testimony has to be re-dated, if the narrative itself
is brought down to, or nearly to, the Exile.
Say, for example, the historian of the Books of Kings
lived in or just at the threshold of the Exile. That being so, a
few decades at most separated him from the date of composi¬
tion of 2 Sam. vii. according to the majority of the Well-
hausen school of criticism, and the interpolated verse 13
would be actually contemporary with him. Yet he is supposed
to have written his story with constant recurrence to this
oracle, of which his father and the fathers of his readers
had never heard. Indeed, according to Volz half the story,
according to H. P. Smith the whole story, was not even
written until his own time.
ECHOES OF THE COVENANT WITH DAVID 609
For all such critics everything that has a touch of the dic¬
tion or phraseology of the Book of Deuteronomy, or that
betrays a Deuteronomic way of judging history, must be later
than b.c. 622, when that “book of the law’’ was “discovered”
in the Temple in the reign of Josiah. Has 2 Sam. vii. such
marks stamped on it? Some say, Yes. And some of these
again account for such marks by a retouching subsequent to
the original publication. Yet even for those critics who are
free (in respect of literary considerations) to place that
chapter as early as they please, there remains the need of
coming down to Josiah’s reign in order to find any circum¬
stances which might give occasion to such enthusiasm for the
Davidic dynasty as this chapter reveals. And Josiah did not
reach the throne till 639, and was not of age till more than a
decade later still.
Thus the margins left for all the developments presup¬
posed by such critics are quite too narrow. The law of de¬
velopment, instead of being respected, is outraged. If, on the
other hand, the Bible’s own dates for its historical, prophetic
and poetic witnesses are accepted, how fine is the develop¬
ment of the Messianic promise! Even from the beginning it
is all there in seed — in principle. But with experience, na¬
tional and individual, with the varied lights of revelation
cast upon it, that germ develops, till at length we admire the
marvellous plant of promise as it stands forth in Isaiah and
Micah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in full bloom now and
ready to yield the fruit that ripens in the New Dispensation
— the age of fulfilment.
Princeton , N.J.
James Oscar Boyd.
POPULAR PROTEST AND REVOLT
AGAINST PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND
FROM 1226 TO 1258
The middle period of the reign of King Henry III marked
a protest against papal taxation in England that was of vital
significance in relation to the ecclesiastical revolt of the 16th
century.1 Between the years 1226 and 1258 issues arose over
papal finances that at times threatened to end in schism, and
although an actual split was avoided, certainly a definite de¬
cline of papal prestige was marked.2 The storm of bitter pro¬
test and dangerous discontent was never quite wholly calmed,
but either worked in an undercurrent or broke forth openly,
at times, until the ultimate breach with the Roman see in
1533-
A contributing cause of this 13th century opposition to
papal taxation was the conflict between two well defined
ideals. On the one hand, the papacy clung tenaciously to the
vision of ecclesiastical imperialism. Especially after the sub¬
mission of King John in 1213, England, according to the
current feudal interpretation, was looked upon as a fief of
the papacy. Innocent III and succeeding popes openly claimed
all the churches of England as papal property and England
itself as a province of the Roman see.3 Innocent IV inso¬
lently alluded to Henry III as his vassal and on one occasion
as his slave.4 With such an attitude the papacy assumed the
right to collect the annual tribute money promised by King
1 See Perry, Hist. Eng. Church, I, 346 (London, 1895) I Capes, English
Church, 85-86, 99 (London, 1900, Bohn Ed.).
2 Roger of Wendover, Flowers of Hist. II, 473 (London, 1849) I Mat¬
thew of Paris, Chronicles of England (London, 1850, Giles Trans.), II,
151, 153, 155, 156, 170-176, 190, 440, 474; III, 44-5°. I56, 173; Matthew of
Westminster (London, 1852) II, 196, 226, 275b 277, 283, 284; Walter of
Coventry, Rolls Series, II, 277-299; Speed, Hist. Gr. Brit., London 1614,
514(20) ; Perry, op. cit. I, 384!.; II, 463-4; Collier, Ecclesiastical Hist, of
Gr. Brit., London, 1852, II, 463, 464, 490; Milman, Latin Christianity,
N.Y., 1896, Book X, p. 317.
3 M. Paris, op. cit.. Ill (Giles Translation), 158; Milman, op. cit., Bk.
X, 311, 314
4 M. Paris, op. cit., Ill, 38; Higden, Poly chronic on, VIII, 190 (Rolls
Series) ; Stevens, English Church, London, 1900, 230.
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND 6l I
John and to impose dues and feudal obligations of various
sorts. The action of the papal curia in this direction was a
large factor in the misunderstanding between England and
Rome during the period under consideration.5
Over against this vision of ecclesiastical imperialism was
the spirit of English nationality. Henry III himself was an
ardent churchman and quite submissive to the dictation of
the papacy,6 but this was certainly not true of his subjects as
a whole. The ideal of English nationality, long fostered by
the fact of geographical isolation, had recently been given
impetus through the loss of Angevin territories in the vic¬
tories of Philip Augustus. The rapid extension of commerce
also, stimulated by the Crusading Movement, was shifting
the center of political gravity from the feudal to the national
unit. This consciousness of political individuality and isola¬
tion was plainly manifest in the time of Henry III. And it
was a growing spirit of nationality with which the papal
court came into contact when trying to impose its authority
as a suzerain power over a vassal territory.
In three definite ways the Roman see brought upon itself
the odium of the English barons, of the clergy, and at times
even of the king himself during this period. These methods
were the operations of the Italian bankers, the practice of
papal provisions, and various forms of direct papal taxation.
I. The Operations of the Italian Bankers
The Coursines, as the Italian bankers were called, seem to
have made their initial appearance in England about 1235.
They came, evidently, as papal agents, but if they were not
official promoters of the papal court, their presence was at
least connived at by Rome and the papacy was looked upon as
a participant in their nefarious business.7 They were in fact
popularly alluded to as “merchants of the pope,” though the
only “merchandise” they dealt with was bills of exchange and
5 M. Paris, II, 399.
6 Grosseteste, Epistles, No. 117, p. 338 (Rolls Ser.) ; M. Paris, II, 189L
7 M. Paris, I, 4; II, 450; III, 47. Gesta Mon. St. Albani, I, 381 (Rolls
Ser.) ; Prynne, Antiquae, 105 (London, 1672).
6l2
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
ready bullion with which they carried on a disguised usury
and an illicit banking system. Roger of Wendover alluded to
them as pests, merciless debtors, the bane of the English
people, who brought great sums of money into the kingdom
and loaned it usuriously contrary to the canon law.8
The particular business of the Italian bankers was to
furnish ready money, especially on the occasion of apapallevy
or tax, to whomsoever would be forced to borrow of them.
Priests, prelates, monks and laymen were time and again
compelled to resort to them for the payment of tithes, dispen¬
sations, commutation of vows and other ecclesiastical obliga¬
tions.9 The king himself was at times heavily in their debt.
At a later time this matter of royal indebtedness, indirectly
at least, proved a factor in the Provisions of Oxford and the
contest decided at the battle of Lewes in 1264. The king had
borrowed largely through the agency of these bankers.
The form of contract used by the Italian money lenders in
conducting business was binding because of the prestige and
papal authority back of the agreement, and was made prac¬
tically ironclad by gilt-edged security.10 A high rate of in¬
terest was assured by the nature of the legal document drawn
up. For each mark loaned, according to this contract, a pound
sterling would be due at the end of a twelvemonth. If one
reckons the old Anglo-Saxon mark of account at $3.23 in
present day value with the pound sterling at $4.86, an interest
rate of about 50% was charged. In case the loan ran over due,
at the end of each bimonthly period one mark for every ten
marks of the original debt was due the lenders. This would
make an interest rate of about 60%.
Risk on the part of the lenders was reduced to a minimum
for the two reasons already mentioned. In the first place, the
prestige and fear of the papal authority guaranteed the ut¬
most effort of the borrower to pay, and in the second place, a
gilt-edged collateral was provided. In regard to the latter,
8 R. Wendover, II, 532.
9 M. Paris, III, 143, 145, 174; Perry, op. cit., I, 321.
10 M. Paris, I, 2'f ; III, 47.
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND
613
churches and monasteries which did business with the papal
money lenders were bound by the following agreement : “We
bind ourselves and our church, and our successors, and all
our goods and those of our church, movable and unmovable,
ecclesiastical and temporal, in possession and hereinafter to
be in possession, wheresoever they shall be found, to the said
merchants and their heirs, until the full payment of the afore¬
said (debt), which goods we hereby recognize we possess
from them by a precarious tenure.”
The Italian bankers were an important factor in the mani¬
fest discontent, protest and revolt of the period. They were
present not to aid laymen and churchmen in times of finan¬
cial straits, but apparently to exploit them in case of usual
and extraordinary papal demands. At any rate, both individ¬
uals and religious corporations were bled for what looked like
selfish gain, and the papal court seemed to enjoy an effective
means of controlling the purse strings of both king and
people. Under color of losses and expenses, always secured
against by a sound collateral surety, the Coursines collected
excessive rates of interest illegally imposed. Above all, they
were accused of being immoral in private life. They were
openly denounced by churchmen and laymen as schismatics,
heretics, usurers and traitors.11 They amassed fortunes and
kept splendid residences in London. Official action was on
one or two occasions taken against them, but with little
success. As early as 1235 the bishop of London pronounced
an anathema against them, but they successfully appealed to
the papacy. In 1251 a prosecution of them was undertaken by
the civil courts with some success, since many were arrested
and others had to seek refuge. Yet by illicit use of their
wealth they saved themselves from permanent expulsion
from the realm.
II. The Practice of Papal Provisions
By the middle of the 13th century foreign influence was
becoming a menace in England along different lines. The
11 Ibid., I, 4; II, 450.
614
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
French marriage of the king brought in a dictation by
Frenchmen in political matters. The operations of the Italian
bankers threatened the control of financial interests by a
group of undesirable foreigners. And now a third danger
loomed up in the shape of papal provisors that tended to
place ecclesiastical affairs also under the power of aliens.
The practice of papal provisions presented a twofold evil
as to the welfare of the realm. One was spiritual and the other
was financial. Ecclesiastical livings were being filled by papal
appointment with foreign incumbents, chiefly Italians. Some
were non-resident prelates dwelling on the Continent out of
contact and out of sympathy with their charges; others were
resident priests ignorant of the vernacular, adverse to Eng¬
lish ideals, and indifferent to the welfare of the flock.12 They
were odious to churchmen and laymen for these reasons and
because they drained large sums of money from the country
without adequate services rendered.13
Appointments of this sort were constant, and involved
now and then a mass displacement of English priests and
prelates by the alien favorites. In 1240 warrants came to
the archbishop of Canterbury and to the bishops of Lincoln
and of Salisbury to provide livings for 300 Italians at one
time. When Martin, a papal agent, came to England in 1244,
he was invested with power to suspend prelates and minor
clergymen to make room for the clerks and nephews of the
Pope as he saw fit. These Italians soon held some of the
richest benefices in the kingdom. Pope Innocent IV was par¬
ticularly generous in this direction for he “impoverished the
universal church more than all his predecessors since the first
establishment of the papacy.” Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln,
complained that the foreign clergy was drawing an annual
income of 70,000 marks.14 Others pointed out that their
combined income exceeded that of the king. One of these
Italian prelates was archdeacon of Richmond for fifty years,
12 Gasquet, Henry III and the Church, 340.
13 M. Paris, I, 29, 502; II, 226, 399, 400, 444; III, 260.
14 Grosseteste, Epistles, No. 131, p. 442 (Rolls Ser.).
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND 6l 5
amassing an immense fortune and keeping the papacy in¬
formed as to vacancies.15
Boniface of Savoy, as archbishop of Canterbury, was
perhaps one of the most outstanding instances of the evil
results of papal patronage along this line, and his career as
such illustrates the unrest and popular discontent growing
out of it. Elevated to the see in 1240, Boniface throughout his
incumbency used the archiepiscopal office as a means of plun¬
dering his ecclesiastical province to maintain a sumptuous
residence abroad and to carry out his foreign schemes. For a
long time after his election he aided his brother, Philip of
Savoy, in prosecuting a private war in Provence. To do so,
under pretext of raising money to pay the debts of his prede¬
cessor, Boniface sold the wood on the lands of his see, levied
fines and taxes on his people, and thus raised 15,000 marks
to carry on a war in which Englishmen had no interest
except that of opposition.
Boniface obtained permission of the pope to collect the
revenues for a year of all the churches in his province
that fell vacant. This “new and unheard of contribution” had
to be paid immediately on pain of suspension, and the bishops
“being unwilling as well as unable to kick against the pope’s
mandate and authority at length consented, although with
bitterness of heart and unwillingly.” Later, when the bishops
further resisted, they were threatened with excommunication
by the papacy. It was now that they began to cherish a secret
malice in their hearts against the papal system.16 In an attempt
to carry out a visitation of his province, “for a greedy love of
money,” Boniface was met by a spirited resistance from his
clergy. This he in turn met with physical force carried to a
point of extreme violence. In the end he was attacked by a
mob, and was finally forced to flee to the Continent.
Though Boniface of Savoy was an outstanding example of
this sort of papal favoritism, he was by no means an isolated
instance. To say that England was infested with alien priests
15 M. Paris, III, 162.
16 Ibid., II, 236, 279, 280.
6l6 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
holding benefices great and small is the statement of a fact.
Their presence, their attitude and their methods were re¬
garded with hatred and suspicion. “The Romans and their
legates lorded it in England, causing much injury to laymen
as well as to ecclesiastics in the matter of the avowsons of
churches, providing their own friends with vacant benefices
at pleasure, setting themselves up in opposition to bishops,
abbots, and other religious men, and involving them in sen¬
tences of excommunication.” This encroachment on their in¬
terests was not looked on passively by the English people, so
that the result was a prolonged and spirited protest and even
open revolt against the practice. In this respect three instances
stand out prominently : the popular demonstrations of 123 1-2 ;
the attitude of the English party at the Council of Lyons in
1245; and the protest of Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln in
1253-
The popular demonstrations that took place in 123 1-2 were
due to a general and a well organized movement directed
against the alien clergy.17 They were significant as to the
nature of the protest involved, the methods used, and the
social standing of some of the participants. Exasperated by
the injustice and oppression of the system of papal patronage,
its opponents organized into secret societies to rid the land
of the foreign intruders. Such societies spread over a large
part of England. Local units were made up of about one
hundred persons having as leaders high officials of the
Church, sheriffs, knights, and other prominent laymen. Hu¬
bert de Burgh was among them and actively assisted in the
mob methods. So powerful was the influence of these asso¬
ciations that the soldiers sent to interfere were won over to
the cause.
The organization resorted to propaganda, threat, and open
violence. The Italian clergy were denounced as a menace. It
was pointed out that avowsons were perverted and misused
by the foreign incumbents. Appointments to benefices, it was
claimed, belonged to the local bishops and not to the papacy.
17 Roger of Wendover, op. cit., II, 544ff.
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND
617
The societies posed as the saviors of the Church by attempt¬
ing to rescue it from foreign patronage. They addressed let¬
ters warning ecclesiastics not to interfere with them in their
work. They forbade the payment of the farms to the Roman
incumbents, essaying to force out the Italian clergy by de¬
priving them of their revenues.
But the association went even a step farther by actually
seizing the goods of the foreign clergy already in possession,
selling these goods and distributing the proceeds to the poor.
An armed band of men took possession of the church at
Wingham in this manner, opened its barns, disposed of the
stuff therein, and distributed the proceeds to the wonted
charities of that benefice. This was no isolated instance, but
the work was carried on in various places and continued
throughout the winter of 123 1-2. Sometimes the alien in¬
cumbents were kidnapped, abducted to places of security, and
forced under threat to promise the proper administration of
the charities involved in their livings. If this movement suc¬
ceeded little in doing away with the evils of papal patronage,
and scarcely checked its growth even temporarily, it at least
illustrates the spirit of the times and the extent to which
Englishmen were willing to go in opposing the papal claims.
At the Council of Lyons in 1245, the English delegation
voiced a protest and displayed a spirit of extreme dissatis¬
faction and resentment against papal patronage. It was here
that Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, assailed the practice of
filling English prebends with alien priests as not merely an
imposition but as a crime against the English nation. The
papal curia, he said, “appoints not pastors but destroyers of
the flock; and that it may provide the livelihood of some one
person, hands over to the jaws of the beasts of the field and to
eternal death souls many, for the life of each of which the
Son of God was willing to be condemned to a most shameful
death.”18 In the same address he denounced all favoritism,
nepotism, and selfish patronage of the Roman court.
William of Poweric, addressing the Council as a layman
is Perry, op. cit., I, 343.
6l8 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
and as spokesman for the English people,19 pointed out that
papal patronage was not only unjust but no longer to be en¬
dured. He complained of various exactions which up to that
time had been freely paid. The matter of papal provisions,
however, was a specially serious matter. The practice was not
only a great annoyance and an “intolerable injury,” but in¬
volved a serious legal problem. Avowsons of churches had
been provided by their founders for the purpose of religious
edification of the local community and for the support of the
poor. That aim was being thwarted by spending these funds
abroad to the neglect of the local interests. Turning to the
pope directly, Poweric said : “But now by you and your pre¬
decessors having no consideration. . . . Italians (of whom
there is an endless number) are enriched by the patron¬
age belonging to those very religious men, the rectors of the
churches, leaving those who ought to be protected entirely un¬
defended, giving no care for the souls of the people, allowing
rapacious wolves to disperse the flock and carry off the wool.
. . . They neglect hospitality and the bestowal of alms. They
receive the fruits and carry them out of the kingdom, impov¬
erishing it in no slight degree by possessing themselves of the
revenues. . .
But the English party at Lyons did not end matters with a
mere protest. It warned the pope that the oppressions must
cease, for they would no longer be endured. The warning was
couched in terms of deference but the spirit of revolt was
plainly apparent. The pope giving fair promises merely
played for time, but the English envoys demanded immediate
redress. When this was finally refused, the delegation lost its
temper departing “in great anger, giving vent to their threats
and swearing with a terrible oath that they would never sat¬
isfy the detestable avarice of the Romans by paying the trib¬
ute, nor would they suffer any longer the produce and
revenues of the churches to be exported from them as here¬
tofore.”
This was the mood in which certain of the English envoys
19 M. Paris, II, 73ft.
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND 619
left the Council of Lyons. They had come asking for redress
and returned with no assurances of relief. They were now
convinced of papal indifference and even antipathy to their
grievances. Resentment was enhanced when the exactions
did not cease, and when the year following the papacy,
angered at the attitude of the English at Lyons, attempted an
alliance with France to attack England, subdue it, and force
upon it a spirit of greater deference for the Roman court. On
the whole, indignation of leaders in England, lay and eccle¬
siastical, was stirred to the depths; and mumblings of seces¬
sion were apparent. Alluding to papal provisions, a contempo¬
rary chronographer wrote190 : “Here is the cause, here are the
reasons why people secede in heart, though not in body, from
our father, the pope, who is provoked to the austerity of a
stepfather; and also from our mother, the Roman Church,
who vents her fury with the persecutions of a stepmother.”
This was again apparent in the attitude of Grosseteste,
who went to the extreme of advocating armed resistance and
revolt.20 From what has already been said, it is evident that
his voice was not a solitary one. In the absence of Boniface
of Savoy, the bishop of Lincoln was the recognized leader of
the English clergy, and his fight may be regarded as that of
the national clerical party of which he was a representative.
His protest at the Council of Lyons has been mentioned.
Later, in 1253, he flatly refused to admit Frederick de La-
vagna, nephew of the pope, as a canon in the cathedral church
of Lincoln. In this episode he took a position that verged
on open schism. In a letter answering the papal mandate for
this appointment, Grosseteste said: “I, although with all
desire for union and in filial obedience and affection, refuse
to obey and oppose and resist the order contained in the
aforesaid letters because it tends towards that which is most
abominable in sin against our Lord Jesus Christ, and to what
is most pernicious to the human race, is altogether opposed
19a Matt. Paris, II, 440.
20 Grosseteste, Epistles, No. 131, p. 443 (Rolls Series).
620
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
to the sanctity of the apostolic see, and is contrary to the
Catholic faith.”21
At the Council of Lyons the bishop of Lincoln still re¬
garded disobedience as a heinous sin, now he looked upon it
as a filial duty to defy the papal demand. A deathbed pro¬
nouncement of this influential leader of the national clerical
party manifests a still further extreme of this spirit of re¬
sistance. There he pointed out that the English Church could
free itself only at the “bloody point of the sword.” Some¬
time before his death he had come to this conclusion, for in
a letter written about this time he advocated a resort to arms
and attempted to justify such a step as a moral and religious
obligation: “Let therefore the noble knights of England, the
renowned citizens of London, and the whole kingdom take
heed of the injury of their exalted mother and rise like men
to repel it. . . . Let the secular power be effectually armed
that, excluding altogether provisions of this sort, the priest¬
hood of the kingdom may be increased in the Lord, and the
treasure of the English may be kept to supply their own land.
This indeed, will tend not only to the unspeakable advantage
of the kingdom and the people, to a glorious title of praise
forever to be remembered, but also to the immense accumu¬
lation of merit in the sight of God.”22
III. Direct Papal Taxation
The third stumbling block as to papal financial methods
came in the way of various sorts of direct taxation. To im¬
pose and collect these taxes, special agents of the papal court
were sent to England. The most outstanding of them were
Otho, Martin, and Rustand. They came as envoys pleni¬
potentiary to impose “new and unheard of taxes” and to
collect old revenues. The presence of one of them precipitated
a riot, another had to flee the realm for his life, and the third
had to retire in disgrace. The pope complained in a letter to
21 Grosseteste, ibid.; see also M. Paris, III, 37, 46; Annals of Burton,
312 (Rolls Series).
22 Grosseteste, Epistles, No. 131, p. 443 (Rolls Series).
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND
621
the king that one of his messengers had been cut in pieces,
another left half dead, and that their credentials had been
tom up and their bulls trodden under foot.
Otho came to England as cardinal-legate with delegated
powers that gave him the nickname of “second pope.”23 He
made two visits, the first of which taking place in 1226
marked a new epoch in ecclesiastical taxation. The Roman
curia tried through him to organize systematically benefices
in England in such a way as to procure a regular and perma¬
nent revenue for the papal exchequer. To this end Otho
came armed with letters demanding the use of two prebends
of each cathedral church and the equivalent of the living of
one monk in each English monastery. The scheme covered
Europe as a whole, and by it Honorius III aimed to secure for
himself and his successors a fixed, perpetual, and dependable
annual income. The pope frankly stated that this collection
was to serve in lieu of bribes and presents customarily ac¬
cepted by the papal court in suits of appeal. He hoped by it to
remove the stigma of avarice that the latter practice had
fixed.
When Romanus, a papal envoy, presented this proposition
to an assembly of French prelates at Bourges, they not only
raised a number of startling objections, but warned the
envoy of imminent schism if the plan were carried out. The
presentation of the scheme in England proved the beginning
of a vigorous and systematic opposition to papal taxation.
Stephen Langton, who led the opposition, declared that the
execution of the project would be the ruin of religion. The
prelates as a whole objected but played for time, being un¬
willing to commit themselves ; but the barons took a decided
stand against the measure. They feared that money thus
diverted from the kingdom would weaken its defence. The
proposition utterly destroyed the influence of Martin, and at
the request of the archbishop of Canterbury, the pope recalled
him in haste. In this case, consciousness of geographical iso-
23 M. Paris, III, 56; Roger of Wendover, op. cit., II, 462L
622
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
lation and a spirit of nationality actuated both barons and
king in resisting the papal claim.
Otho did not return for over a decade. In the meantime
Stephen, a chaplain of the pope, attended to papal affairs in
England. At a council of prelates and barons Stephen de¬
manded a tithe of all movable property throughout England,
Scotland and Wales. The papacy wanted money to aid in the
war against the emperor, arguing that the latter as the com¬
mon enemy of the Church Universal should be resisted by
all Christendom. The assembly failed to see the situation in
that light, for the barons bluntly refused to contribute. But
the abbots, bishops, and priors, after much grumbling, finally
submitted. Owing to pressing needs, the money had to be
furnished at once, and Stephen efficiently organized the
work of collecting it, exploiting his powers to the uttermost.
He took “a tenth part of all incomes, yearly profits, produce
of plowed lands, offerings, tithes, provisions for men and
beasts, and of all revenues of all churches and other posses¬
sions, under whatsoever name they might be enrolled, on no
occasion deducting any debt or expenses.” The prelates had to
borrow on the altar furniture and secure money at high
interest to make the payments. They even pledged the grow¬
ing crops to meet the extraordinary demand. The result was
that “the country was filled with incessant, though secret
maledictions, and all prayed that such exactions might never
be productive of any advantage to their exactors.”
Thus by the second coming of Otho in 1247 the clouds had
been gathered and the storm was ready to burst. The general
purpose for his presence was to procure more money for the
papal-imperial wars. This was already a very unpopular
cause in England, and it was now made well nigh unendur¬
able by imposing a double tithe. The legate gathered addi¬
tional funds by absolving vows of crusaders. The result was
violence against Otho from the beginning, and attempts at
organized resistance to him throughout his stay.24 The barons
24 For the account of Otho’s second visit see: M. Paris, I, 5Sf ., 124-128.
Higdon, Poly chronic on, VIII, 21 1 (Rolls Series) ; Annals of Burton,
107F (Rolls Series) ; Knighton, Chron., I, 227 (Rolls Series).
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND 623
criticized the king for inviting him into the kingdom “to make
alterations therein.” At Oxford he was mobbed and his
brother was killed in the fray, he himself barely escaping with
his life. He found a refuge with the king, but “the clerks, be¬
side themselves with rage, did not cease to search for the
legate in the most secret places, shouting and saying : ‘where
is that usurer, that simoniac, that plunderer of revenues, that
thirster for money, who perverts the king and subverts the
kingdom to enrich foreigners with his spoil’ ” ! At a council
held in London, Otho had to be guarded by armed soldiers.
Before taking a trip into Scotland, he sent on ahead scouts to
inform him concerning possible attempts to waylay him. The
barons warned him to leave England, since he was regarded
as a secret enemy of the realm. When Otho finally departed,
none but the king regretted his going.
It was said that during Otho’s four year residence in Eng¬
land he absorbed a half of the yearly revenues of the clergy
besides giving away prebends, churches, and some three hun¬
dred rich livings to the foreign friends of the papacy. When
he left “the kingdom was like a vineyard exposed to every
passer-by, and which the wild boar of the woods laid waste
and made to languish in a miserable state of desolation. . . .
Because he was sent not to protect the sheep that were lost
but to gather in the money he could find.” Resistance to him
had been marked by a failure to secure effective results. This
was due to a number of causes. The fact that he limited his
demands to the clergy saved him from violent opposition on
the part of the barons. The king was in sympathy with the
legate. Again, opposition, fervent as it was at times, lacked
proper leadership and organization. Finally, when concerted
action tended to threaten, Otho thwarted it with bribe and
intrigue.
Three years passed before another special agent was sent
to England. But in the interim the papacy was represented by
two resident clerks named Peter de Supino and Peter le
Rough, “indefatigable extortioners who held papal warrants
for exaction of procurations, imposing interdicts, excom-
624 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
municating and extorting money from the wretched English
. . . and amassed fresh heaps of money during this time.”
But the advent of Martin opened a new phase of resistance
to papal claims because he made the blunder of insisting on
tallages, collections, and special contributions involving lay
fees. This led the barons to a rigid resistance that brought
about his speedy undoing and seriously menaced the cause of
the papacy in England. Even the king failed to give him
unstinted support such as he had given his predecessor.
The main object of Martin’s mission was again in the in¬
terests of the war against Frederick II. He seemed to have
possessed unlimited powers, for the belief was current that
he could write “according to his own mind,” over the seals of
a large supply of blank papal bulls, any demand that suited
his immediate purpose.25 His first demand was for 10,000
marks as a freewill gift to the papacy. This was refused him.
He then laid hold on the revenues of vacant churches. He
also ordered gifts from all the monasteries in the way of
horses, food, and clothing, presumably for use in the papal-
imperial war. He urged payment of the tribute money prom¬
ised by King John, but long in abeyance. This was the cause
of a bitter protest. The stay of Martin was short, but he
raised issues that stirred the nation and drove it to the verge
of schism.26 His exit was sudden, precipitate, and very
dramatic. An armed band of knights accosted him, hurled
upon him threat after threat, and gave him choice between
leaving the kingdom or being cut to pieces. When he made
appeal to the king he got little consolation. The king told
him that his barons were threatening insurrection because of
the methods and demands of Martin. “The depredations and
injuries committed by you in this kingdom” said the king,
“exceed all measure of justice.” When Martin asked a free
exit, the king replied : “May the devil take you and carry you
through hell.” He was given a safe-conduct, however, and he
seized the opportunity to leave with precipitate haste and in
25 M. Paris, I, 479; H, 13, 53, 75.
26 M. Paris, I, 501 ; II, 75-6, 108, 129, 141-144, 148-156, 168-175, 191-206.
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND
625
dire fear. The Romanophile king, no doubt, would have
protected the agent in the end, but he feared insurrection.
The exit of Martin “rejoiced the hearts of many.” The spirit
of revolt was so acute that the Italian clergy were forced into
hiding, and the Italian bankers had to flee the realm.
In this critical period of papal exactions, loud and violent
complaints, long suppressed, now broke out everywhere.
Direct taxation had been increased on a sort of graduated
scale of a twentieth, a tithe, a double tithe, and finally to a
third of the value of the goods taxed.27 There were cases in
which a half of the revenues was sequestered.28 Even the
king at last complained : “Among all other nations and king¬
doms, England is the most heavily trampled on by the op¬
pressions of the pope. . . . O, Lord God of vengeance,
when wilt thou sharpen thy sword like lightning that it may
be steeped in the blood of such people?”29 Grosseteste made a
visit to Rome personally to appeal to the pope in 1250. He re¬
turned so disgusted over papal greed and maladministration,
that he decided to resign his diocese and retire to private life.
Only the good of the Church caused him, on second thought,
to yield to a better impulse. Assemblies of nobles condemned
the “irregular levies made contrary to the ancient customs,
liberties, and rights of the kingdom.” Missions were sent to
Rome pleading for mitigation of grievances. Abbots, bishops,
barons, and even the king addressed letters to the papacy de¬
nouncing the exactions and asking for relief.30 Sentiment in¬
dicative of a rupture with Rome was rife, warnings were
uttered, and threats were made that schism and secession were
imminent unless relief came.
Matthew of Paris, a contemporary chronicler, pictures the
situation thus : “The discontent which long had been con¬
ceived and rankled in the hearts of the English in conse¬
quence, now broke out in open complaints, as if in parturi¬
tion they spoke out openly being no longer able to contain
27 Ibid., I, 261, 262, 265, 282; II, 205.
28 M. Paris, II, 191, 205.
29 Ibid., II, 400.
80 Ibid., II, 148-156. Annals of Burton (Rolls Series), p. 265.
626
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
themselves.”31 . . . “The devotion of the Christians grew
lukewarm, and the feeling of filial affection . . . towards the
pope . . . died away; yea, indeed, was converted into exe¬
crable hatred and secret maledictions; for each and all saw that
the pope . . . was insatiably intent on plunder of money, and
many did not now believe that he held the power granted
from Heaven to St. Peter.”32 Another chronicler confirmed
these statements : “A murmur arose among the clergy and
the people in general, so whatsoever they brought they con¬
tributed unwillingly and (that I may not suppress the truth)
with curses and maledictions, enumerating afresh their griev¬
ances to the lord the pope, with complaints from the bottom
of their hearts, and representing the intolerable oppressions
to which they w^ere subjected.”33 “A lukewarmness came over
the devotion which used to be felt towards the pope, our
father, and the Roman Church, our mother. . . . For
strange reports were spread about him, and preconceived
hopes of the pope’s sanctity were extinguished.”34
The king addressed a letter to the pope, stating that the
nobles were becoming more and more urgent in their de¬
mands that the king take steps to “procure their liberation
from the oppressions” which were being more and more
heavily imposed on them. To the cardinals the king also
wrote, warning them that he could not “dissemblingly pass
by the clamorous complaints of the nobles, clergy, and people
who have become more than usually loud in their outcries
against oppressions. . . Wherefore we humbly and devotedly
entreat the pope that he will condescend to listen to the en¬
treaties which we have made to him through reiterated mes¬
sengers, that we may render them more favorable and de¬
voted to the said Church and to us, and prevent them from
becoming estranged from their allegiance. We also earnestly
beg you ... to interpose your efforts, that the messengers
31 M. Paris, II, 501.
32 Ibid., II, 199.
33 M. Westminster, II, 283.
34 M. Paris, III, 173.
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND 627
of the said nobles, now again sent, may be listened to with
much favor by the pope and by yourselves, that the imminent
peril which seems to hang over the said Church may not fall
on us and it, although it is feared in no slight degree by each
and all in our kingdom.”
The abbots, the bishops, and the nobles each as a group
likewise sent letters to Rome. The abbots and the bishops
pictured the discontent of the people as having reached such
a point that it could no longer be appeased by mere promises
for relief. Papal exactions must cease or revolt would result.
The abbots asserted that the English Church was intent upon
her divine duties, but the exactions, oppressions, and mani¬
fold tribulations had raised a storm of protest that threatened
to crush it in at the four comers like the house of Job. “See¬
ing that manifold perils are impending over it, unless in many
points a remedy be applied by you, there will be reason to
fear that a disturbance will occur among the people, scandal
will arise, and manifold schisms will be produced.” The
bishops wrote in a similar vein.35
Most significant and outspoken of all was the letter of the
nobles. In plain, though guarded, language they demanded
immediate relief and threatened revolt and resistance by force,
unless the papal exactions were mitigated : “It will be neces¬
sary for us, unless the king and the kingdom are soon released
from the oppressions practised upon them, to oppose our¬
selves as a wall for the house of the Lord and for the liberty
of the kingdom. This we have out of respect for the apostolic
see hitherto delayed doing; but we shall not be able to dis¬
semble after the return of our messengers who are sent on
this matter to the apostolic see, or to refrain from giving
succor to the clergy as well as to the people of the kingdom
of England, who will on no account endure these proceedings.
And your holiness may rest assured that unless the aforesaid
matters be speedily reformed by you, there will be reasonable
grounds to fear that such a peril will impend to the Roman
« Ibid., II, 150.
628
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Church, as well as our lord, the king, that it will not be easy
to apply a remedy to the same. Which God forbid.”
The climax of affairs growing out of the papal financial
oppressions beginning as early as 1226 finally came in the
Provisions of Oxford in 1258. It was largely complications
in papal finance, due to the Apulian succession, that caused
the barons in the end to revolt and reorganize the govern¬
ment under the leadership of Simon de Mont fort. The blow
that for a time menaced the papacy fell on the king. This
was due to his vacillation and his ultimate unwillingness to
offend the papal authority. When popular feeling was ten¬
sioned to the breaking point with Rome, the king who was
the natural leader of the movement drew back. Had he not
wavered, the break with Rome which seemed imminent might
have been consummated. Several times Henry III had
screwed up his courage to resistance, but his opposition was
half-hearted, for he feared interdict. Contemporaries la¬
mented this “womanly fickleness of the king” which thwarted
the barons and bishops in the fight with the papacy. This fail¬
ure to break with the papacy finally led the nobles to break
with the king. At least it may be said that the political crisis
of 1258 was closely bound up with the ecclesiastical situation.
In the Apulian episode the obvious intention of the papacy
was to make use of English money to help drive the last of
the Hohenstaufen out of Southern Italy. Henry was inordi¬
nately gullible, for he sent to the pope for this visionary
purpose permission to borrow practically unlimited sums
through the Italian bankers. With the aid of these resources
the pope carried out a series of campaigns against the Ger¬
man claimant of the Apulian crown. These expeditions
proved a fiasco, but the English king was held to the pay¬
ment of the money. As a climax to the affair, the papacy in¬
duced the king personally to lead an army into Italy to gain
that which had been lost. Of course the king did not go, but
his promise complicated the situation.
In the interests of this project and of the payment of the
debt incurred by the king, Alexander IV sent Rustand as spe-
PAPAL FINANCE IN ENGLAND
629
cial representative to England. The first act of Rustand was
to order a crusade preached against Manfred. This raised
bitter opposition. He also demanded “immense sums of
money. ... If this money had been collected, the Church
of England, indeed the whole kingdom would have been af¬
flicted with irremediable poverty and reduced to abject
slavery.” At first the bishops stubbornly refused to pay, but
a compromise was finally effected in favor of the Apulian
cause.
The Apulian affair in the end involved the king in a debt of
some 140,000 marks.36 The interest on this was said to have
amounted to 100 pounds sterling a day.37 It was estimated
that the king spent altogether a sum of 950,000 marks for
this visionary scheme.38 This extravagance and mismanage¬
ment of funds helped precipitate the political crisis. Three
times the barons refused to accede to the wishes of the king to
subsidize a Sicilian expedition, and on each occasion they
were supported by the prelates. The third time this matter
came up, the barons appeared in armor at the council and
imposed the Provisions of Oxford on the king. Later the
breaking of this contract brought a rupture between the
king and the national party, led by Simon de Montfort. The
Barons’ War, indirectly at least, was an armed protest that
involved arbitrary papal demands for money.
Kirksville, Mo. Oscar A. Marti.
36 Ibid., Ill, 225. The Annals of Burton gives this sum as 135,000
marks. The Gesta Mon. St. Albani sets the sum as high as 250,000 pounds
sterling. See Annals, p. 390; Gesta, vol. I, p. 383.
37 M. Paris, III, 203. Gesta Mon. St. Albani, I, 383.
38 M. Paris, III, 228.
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH AND
ITS MODERN CONFIRMATIONS
There are few stories in the Bible which have been sub¬
jected to more adverse criticism than that of Jonah and the
“great fish,” rightly interpreted, no doubt, to mean the great¬
est fish of all, the whale. In its simple directness it reads like a
fable. The bare suggestion that a man could be swallowed by
a fish and yet survive seems so unlikely in the face of our or¬
dinary experience as to amount to an absurdity. We are pre¬
pared readily to welcome evidence against it. There is also
probably another rather more subtle reason. When Thomas
Hobbes of Malmesbury, who tried to base all virtues on
selfishness, claimed that pity consisted in imagining how we
should feel, if we were in like evil case to the object of pity,
he was touching upon an undoubted natural instinct. Pity
apart, we cannot help putting ourselves in Jonah’s place, con¬
dition most repellent even in the imagining. As a result the
story is widely discredited, jeered at by some, treated by
others as a myth or fable improvised for teaching purposes,
and by the more believing sort as a miracle, once enacted
under divine interposition, and never, it is hoped, to be
repeated.
It is suggested that these views need regularising. If Mod¬
ernism requires that Revelation shall be tested scientifically,
it is obvious that the science so applied must be itself above
suspicion. When such an event is recorded as a fact in serious
literature as part of a sequence of historical events, it de¬
serves to be treated seriously, not by impressionism, or sen¬
timent, but by reasonable tests of physiological and historical
experience. It is proposed in this article, to weigh the story by
these two kinds of tests.
But before doing so it is necessary for purposes of clear¬
ness to examine more closely the common objection that the
event was miraculous and therefore impossible. By this it is
probably intended to imply that it was due to divine inter¬
position in breach of natural law. This suggests a distinction
which it is well to keep in mind. If, as is probable, the com¬
mon acceptation of miracle does presuppose divine inter-
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH 63 I
position — in so far as it is truly Scriptural it must do this —
there are yet two different ways in which this interposition
could be exercised. It need not be in breach of natural law.
It may equally well be through use of laws of nature, which
are beyond the range of human knowledge or if known are
beyond human power to use, or through laws of God which
transcend the laws of nature as constituted by Him.
The modern revolt against the miraculous is probably di¬
rected in considerable measure against interposition contrary
to nature. And there is consequently a tendency in orthodox
circles to find the account of the miraculous in the employ¬
ment of natural forces outside the range of human knowl¬
edge, of which it is obvious there must be a vast array, or
beyond the reach of human power. But it should be clearly
understood that any attempt to include these miracles, these
“signs” or “powers,” within the limits of laws of nature and
to treat them as special providences, by no means excludes
the miraculous in the more specific sense of a direct and
unmediated divine interposition. Scripture clearly recognizes
both.
In the present case we seem to be dealing with a miracle in
the broader sense. When in language suited by its primitive
simplicity to readers of those early records the Biblical ac¬
count says “The Lord prepared a great fish,” “The Lord
spake unto the fish,” it ignores second causes and attributes
to the Creator a direct, and, in that sense, miraculous, control
of His creatures of the sea, which is continuous with the
several instances in the Gospel narrative in which our
Saviour exercised a similar control over the fishes. In both
cases it is apparently natural forces only which are set in
motion, but in a fashion which was miraculous, because it
was quite outside the range of human power.
I
We come then, to the application of the two tests before
mentioned. In the first place the physiological test.
The great fish in question would be the sperm whale or
cachalot, the species which inhabits the southern waters
632 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
where Jonah was voyaging “being met with ... in all
tropical and subtropical seas”1 and “in summer occasionally
visiting the Shetlands and even Iceland.”2 It differs from the
“right” or “whalebone whale” of northern seas by having
teeth on its under jaw instead of whalebone, fitting into
sockets on the upper jaw.3 It “attains a very large size and
may measure from 50 to 70 or 80 feet in length.” “The head
is about one-third of the length of the body, very massive,
high and truncated in front.”4
It will not therefore be considered exorbitant, if we postu¬
late for Jonah a whale 60 ft. long (9 ft. shorter than the
model in the South Kensington Museum), with a mouth
“20 ft. in length,” also “15 ft. in height and 9 ft. in width,”
says Sir John Bland Sutton.5 When one compares this with
an actual house-room one would be inclined to agree with
his further estimate, “Such a chamber would easily accom¬
modate twenty Jonahs standing upright.” To this it has been
objected, however, that it “has also an enormous tongue.”
But this idea is due to the common confusion between sperm
whale and “right whale.” It is the tongue of the latter which
is very large. Whereas Herman Melville, that working
whaler, with his unique and minute knowledge of practical
cetology insists that “the sperm whale has no tongue or at
least it is exceedingly small”6 — “Scarcely anything of a
tongue,” — “quite small for so large an animal. It was almost
incapable of movement, being somewhat like a fowl’s.” Any¬
how Jonah had no opportunity of making the experiment of
standing, as he passed speedily into the whale’s belly.
Now here we face one of the most prevalent popular
criticisms of the story. Again and again impossibility is
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, art., “Whale.”
2 E. G. Boulenger, Queer Fish, p. 183.
3 Frank T. Bullen, Cruise of the Cachalot, pp. 53, 221.
4 Popular Encyclopaedia, art. “Oesophagus” ; and Encyclopaedia Bri¬
tannica, art., “Sperm Whale.”
5 A Lecture on the Psychology of Animals Swallowed Alive by Sir
John Bland Sutton, President Royal College of Surgeons.
6 Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pp. 401, 415 ; also Cruise of the Cacha¬
lot, p. 54.
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH
633
urged, on the ground that the “whale’s oesophagus or gullet
is too small.” This misapprehension is due no doubt once
again to the false analogy of the right whale which7 “has a
very small throat and feeds on small animalculae” on “minute
crustaceans and tiny molluscs” which abound in the Arctic
seas.8 But biologists tell us that as a general rule “in fishes the
gullet is small, short, wide and distensible.” It is like that of a
serpent, able to swallow “prey of large bulk.” Sir John
Bland Sutton in his lecture illustrates the “black swallower”
( Chiasmodon nigrum ) which has “swallowed a fish larger
than itself,” just as a boa constrictor will readily gorge itself
with a kid, which is larger than its undistended mouth. The
right whale has little reason to develop a distended oesoph¬
agus. The sperm whale has constant reason. “It swims about
with its lower jaw hanging down — and its huge gullet gaping
like some submarine cavern.”9 Only too easy to be swallowed
by it !
Anyhow this is not a question of calculated possibilities
but of recorded facts. The sperm whale subsists for the most
part on the octopus, “the bodies of which, far larger than the
body of a man, have been found whole in its stomach.”10
7 Robert Kinnes and Sons, Dundee ; so also Officials at S. Kensington
Museum ; and Queer Fish, p. 182.
8 “The contrast between the two animals (sperm whale and Mysticetus
or right whale) is most marked, so much so in fact that one would hardly
credit them with belonging to the same order.
“Popular ideas of the whale are almost invariably taken from the
right whale, so that the average individual generally defines a whale as a
big fish which . . . cannot swallow a herring. Indeed so lately as last
year [this was written in 1898] a popular M.P. writing to one of the
religious papers allowed himself to say that ‘Science will not hear of a
wh-^le with a gullet capable of admitting anything larger than a man’s
fist’ — a piece of crass ignorance which is also perpetrated in the appendix
to a very widely distributed edition of the Authorized Version of the
Bible. This opinion, strangely enough, is almost universally held, although
I trust that the admirable models now being shown in our splendid
Natural History Museum at South Kensington will do much to remove
it” ( Cruise of the Cachalot, p. 191 ; cf. similar statement in Queer Fish,
p. 182).
9 Cruise of the Cachalot, pp. 221, 342.
10 S. Kensington Museum Records. “Guide to Whales,” etc., p. 20
(publ. 1922).
634 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
"Great masses of semi-transparent looking substance of huge
size and irregular shape — portions of cuttlefish — massive
fragment — tentacle or arm as thick as a stout man’s body,’’
"capable of devouring large animals whale,” "almost ele¬
phantine cuttle fish.” Frank I. Bullen has given dramatic eye¬
witness accounts of the titanic struggle when "a . . . cachalot
meets a cuttlefish of almost equal dimensions.” The manager
of a whaling station in the extreme north of Britain stated
that the largest thing they had found in a whale was "the
skeleton of a shark 16 feet long.”12 When confronted with
the difficulty about the oesophagus he smiled and explained
that “the throat of a sperm whale can take lumps of food
8 feet in diameter.” Asked if he believed the story of Jonah
and the whale he replied “Certainly. It is of course a miracle
how Jonah was kept alive, but as to the possibility of his
being swallowed there can be no question.” — “One may rea¬
sonably question the prophet’s survival after being swal¬
lowed, but there is no doubt that certain species of whales
could swallow a man without the least inconvenience to them¬
selves.”13
Was there then after all a miracle? This is the next point
to be “reasonably questioned.” Could a man live in a whale?
The answer seems to be that he certainly could, though in
circumstances of very great discomfort. There would be air
to breathe — of a sort. This is necessary to enable the fish to
float. The heat would be very oppressive. 104-6° Fahrenheit
is the opinion of one expert; a provision maintained by his
“blanket”14 of blubber “often many feet in thickness” which
is needed “to enable him to resist the cold of ocean,” and
“keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times
and tides”; “for the same reason that a Channel swimmer
covers himself with grease”; but this temperature, though
high fever heat to a human being, is not fatal to human life.
11 Cruise of the Cachalot, p. 77 ; see also p. 342, and Queer Fish, p. 182.
12 Sixty-Three Years of Engineering by the late Sir Francis Fox, p.
295. Cruise of the Cachalot says “Fifteen feet,” p. 276.
13 Queer Fish, pp. 181 and 186.
14 Moby Dick, p. 368; Queer Fish, p. 181.
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH
635
Again the gastric juice would be extremely unpleasant, but
not deadly. It cannot digest living matter, otherwise it would
digest the walls of its own stomach.
How long then could one live?15 “Until he starved” was
James Bartley’s estimate based, as we shall see presently, on
his practical experience.
So far the physiological test.
II
This brings us in the second place to the historical. Such an
amazing experience as that of Jonah, almost universally be¬
lieved to be unique, even when it is shewn to be consistent
with natural laws, is greatly corroborated and illuminated if
it can be compared with another similar case. Such is that of
James Bartley, as recently as 1891, recorded by Sir Francis
Fox, in his book already referred to. But before giving
details let it be clearly understood that the whole story
was carefully investigated, not only by Sir Francis Fox,
but by two French scientists, one of whom was the late
M. de Parville, the scientific editor of the Journal des Debats
of Paris, “one of the most careful and painstaking scientists
in Europe,’’ who concluded his investigations by stating his
belief that the account given by the Captain and crew of the
English whaler is worthy of belief. “There are many cases
where whales in the fury of their dying agony have swal¬
lowed human beings; but this is the first modern case in
which the victim has come forth safe and sound.” After this
modern illustration he says, “I end by believing that Jonah
really did come out from the whale alive, as the Bible re¬
cords.”
Outlines of the story can best be given by means of quota¬
tions from Sir Francis Fox’s account, which are quoted by
his kind permission.
15 Sixty-Three Years of Engineering , p. 300. So far from fatal to
animal life is it to be swallowed by a fish that the porcupine fish ( diodon )
not only has been found floating alive in the stomach of a shark, but
has been known to eat its way out through the greater fish’s side. See
Sutton’s lecture ; also Queer Fish, p. 43 : “None the worse for his Jonah-
like experience.”
636 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
In Feb. 1891, the whaling ship “Star of the East” was in the vicinity
of the Falkland Islands and the lookout sighted a large sperm whale
three miles away. Two boats were launched and in a short time one of the
harpooners was enabled to spear the fish. The second boat attacked the
whale but was upset by a lash of its tail and the men thrown into the
sea, one man being drowned, and another, James Bartley, having disap¬
peared could not be found. The whale was killed and in a few hours was
lying by the ship’s side and the crew were busy with axes and spades
removing the blubber. They worked all day and part of the night. Next
morning they attached some tackle to the stomach which was hoisted on
the deck. The sailors were startled by something in it which gave spas¬
modic signs of life, and inside was found the missing sailor doubled up
and unconscious. He was laid on the deck and treated to a bath of sea
water which soon revived him. . . . He remained two weeks a raving
lunatic. ... At the end of the third week he had entirely recovered from
the shock and resumed his duties.16
Now let him comment on the possibility of living in such
surroundings.
Bartley affirms that he would probably have lived inside his house of
flesh until he starved, for he lost his senses through fright and not from
lack of air. He remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the boat
into the sea. . . . He was then encompassed by a great darkness and he
felt he was slipping along a smooth passage of some sort that seemed to
move and carry him forward. The sensation lasted but a short time and
then he realized he had more room. He felt about him and his hands
came in contact with a yielding slimy substance that seemed to shrink
from his touch. It finally dawned upon him that he had been swallowed
by the whale ... he could easily breathe-, but the heat was terrible. It
was not of a scorching, stifling nature, but it seemed to open the pores
of his skin and draw out his vitality. . . . His skin where it was ex¬
posed to the action of the gastric juice . . . face, neck and hands were
bleached to a deadly whiteness and took on the appearance of parchment
. . . (and) never recovered its natural appearance . . . (though other¬
wise) his health did not seem affected by his terrible experience.
These details in their vivid realism seem to bear the stamp
of truth upon them, even apart from the verification of M. de
Parville’s careful scientific research. But still further corrob¬
oration is forthcoming in the accident recorded by Sir John
Bland Sutton as having happened rather more than a century
earlier to Marshall Jenkins in the South Seas. “The Boston
Post Boy, Oct. 14th, 1771, reports” as it says “upon un-
16 Sixty-Three Years of Engineering, pp. 298-300. The possibility is
suggested also in The Cruise of the Cachalot.
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH
637
doubted authority”17 that an Edgartown (U.S.A.) whaling
vessel after striking a whale had one of her boats bitten in
two by the whale, which “took said Jenkins in her mouth and
went down with him.” On returning to the surface the whale
had ejected him on to the wreckage of the broken boat, “much
bruised but not seriously injured.”18
We may gather from each of these accounts parallelism in
part to Jonah’s experience. In the latter case it was the whale
which reproduced its victim. In the former there is a very
interesting similarity in chronology. It should be noticed in
the account, that James Bartley’s detention “in durance vile”
was — similarly to Jonah’s — for one complete day coming
between two nights and two parts of days. What are the
words? “A few hours passed after the whale was secured.”
But part of the preceding day and part of the night had al¬
ready been spent in killing and securing it. After this, with
dawn of the second day the work began. “All that day and
part of the night” (the second night) “they worked with their
axes and spades” at the main body of the labour. Then, this
second night being over, “next morning they took the further
action which led to the man’s release.”19
17 A copy of the Massachusetts Gazette Boston Post Boy and Adver¬
tiser No. 738, Boston. Monday, Oct. 14th, 1771, can be seen at any time in
the Public Library at Boston, U.S.A. That is to say it is contemporaneous
history undisputed at the time. The actual quotation verified in 1926 from
the original on the spot by thoroughly reliable public authority is as
follows: “We hear from Edgartown that a vessel lately arrived there
from a Whaling Voyage, and that on her Voyage, one Marshal Jenkins
with others, being in a Boat that struck a Whale, she turned and bit the
Boat in two, took said Jenkins in her mouth and went down with him;
but on her rising threw him into one Part ; from whence he was taken on
board the vessel by the crew, being much bruised; and that in about a
Fortnight after, he perfectly recovered. This account we have from
undoubted authority.”
18 This is the regular method by which the sperm whale is accustomed
constantly to rid itself of awkward and indigestible objects that it has
swallowed, as for instance the horny beaks of giant cuttlefish which, if
retained, it covers with a waxy substance called ambergris. See Queer
Fish, p. 185: “When dying the cachalot always ejects the contents of his
stomach.” Cf. also Cruise of the Cachalot, p. 77.
19 The first part of this period can be clearly visualized by comparing
638 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
So far then the historical test seems to be amply satisfied
in the two similar though more modern cases of James
Bartley and Marshall Jenkins.20 Is there any further diffi¬
culty as to the historicity of the story of Jonah?
Now that the central event is established on scientific
grounds as in itself quite possible, the Bible story takes its
place as an ordinary historical record, claiming to be sub¬
jected to the usual tests of history. There is one line of
modern criticism which would reject it on the assumption
that the Book of Jonah was written some 700 years later
than the date assigned for the events. Of this there is no
proof. It is mere conjecture. As however, it bears not only
on this but on many questions of history of the distant past,
it is worth careful consideration how far lapse of time tends
to vitiate the truth of historic records.
There are two sources from which a late writer could
draw the facts for his history, (a) public records, (b) tradi¬
tion. In both cases the persistence of the story would be in
proportion to the startling nature of the event.
(a) As to the existence of such early records, long before
the days of Jonah, the following statement by Professor
A. H. Sayce, the celebrated Egyptologist, will be accepted as
conclusive. He says under date July 7, 1927 :
The “critical” assumption about the late date of literary works and
Herman Melville’s description of the method usually followed : “When a
captured sperm whale after long and weary toil is brought alongside late
at night ‘the vast corpse’ has to be ‘tied by the head to the stern and by
the tail to the bows’ with ‘heavy chains’ and then ‘It is not customary to
proceed at once to the exceedingly laborious business of cutting him
in.’ ‘The common usage is to . . . send everyone below to his hammock
till daylight’ ” ( Moby Dick, chap. LXIV. and beginning of chap. LXVI).
20 Others, though less plausibly, have supposed that the “great fish” in
question was the “Sea Dog” ( Carcharodon carcharias) , which “is found
in all warm seas. It is said to reach a length of 40 feet and to be the
most voracious of all sharks” ( Records of British Museum (Natural
History) South Kensington). There is a record of one caught that had
swallowed a sea lion. And Oken and Muller, quoted by Keil, state that
in the year 1758 a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Medi¬
terranean and was swallowed by one of the sea dogs, and that the captain
of the vessel ordered a cannon on the deck to be fired at the fish, which
being struck by the ball, vomited up the sailor alive and not much hurt.
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH
639
codes of law in the ancient East are long since dead. Besides the great
Babylonian Code of Khammurabi or Ammurapi (= Amraphel) which
was based on the earlier Sumerian laws, we now have the Assyrian and
Hittite Codes, in both earlier and later forms, the latter dating about
1400 B.C.
As for literature, women as well as men were writing to one another
on every day matters long before the Abrahamic age ; the chief cities of
Western Asia had their public libraries ; and “chronicles” similar to
those represented by the Book of Kings (or Genesis) had been compiled
for “popular” reading from the early annals. I have just been translating
some letters written by members of a “Company” representing one of the
Babylonian firms who worked the silver, copper and lead mines of the
Taurus, b.c. 2300. They came from the banks of the Halys, not far from
Kaisariyeh in Cappadocia, and might have been written today so far as
the wording and enquiries about domestic affairs, etc., are concerned.
(b) Tradition also offers a fascinating study. Could a tra¬
dition survive 700 years? Now the average generation,
father to son, is roughly 30 years; and the generation for
purposes of tradition, grandfather to grandson, is therefore
60 years ; needing no more than twelve successive genera¬
tions to carry any notable tradition seven hundred years
along; and, if the event be sufficiently startling, it is a uni¬
versal tendency to perpetuate in this manner even local hap¬
penings generation after generation. One typical instance
will probably suffice. There is on the verge of the New Forest
in Hampshire “Tyrrell’s Ford’’ on the river Avon, and a
village, Avon Tyrrell, nearby. Few events in English history
made a greater stir in their time than the sudden, accidental
(?) demise of the Red William in the centre of his own and
his conquering father’s tyranny. Whether or not popular
belief as to the hand that shot the arrow is correct, the tradi¬
tion that it was Walter Tyrrell still survives in the name and
the minds of the people though 827 years have passed away.21
To sum up. The story of Jonah occurs in Hebrew litera¬
ture and tradition as an historical record. It can hardly be
21 The tradition appears to pervade the locality. Close to “Tyrrell’s
Ford” are also Avon-Tyrrell Farm and Avon-Tyrrell Cottage; and a
disused forge where it is said that Tyrrell had his horse shod on his
flight to the coast. Further till within very recent years the village of
Avon-Tyrrell had to pay a fine (say three pounds per annum) to the
Crown ever since the death of Rufus, for allowing Walter Tyrrell to
escape his deserts by crossing the Avon at the ford.
64O THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
disputed that the tests applied to it are in fairness bound to be
the most careful, accurate and dispassionate that science and
history can supply. Physiological tests entirely disprove the
alleged impossibility of the story. It is shewn by study of the
structure of the sperm whale and its habits that it is perfectly
possible for a man to be swallowed alive and after an interval
vomited up again, also for him to remain alive for two or
three days within the whale. Historical tests shew that a sim¬
ilar event has happened in later times in at least one case, and
that it is quite possible for an authentic record to have sur¬
vived over even a much longer period than 700 years.
It is obvious that this whole subject has a direct reference
to Christology. Our Saviour refers to it in the course of His
most solemn teaching. If it is not true, then how was He
using it? Did He know it for a fiction or did He not? He is
a teacher, whose whole attitude is confessedly one of ab¬
solute and unique devotion to Truth.22, How flagrantly un¬
likely that He would have fathered a story so unique and im¬
probable without careful verification. “But if He was ig¬
norant or mistaken,” so runs the common argument, “what
does it matter? He was using the well-known story simply as
a parable.” Now supposing the story were impossible, this
view would offer a reasonable resource. But the impossibility
having been removed, the Master’s use of it in His teaching
obviously demands deeper and more careful investigation. If
a parable, then what is the lesson it was intended to convey?
The folly of rebellion against God? The duty of self-sacri¬
fice for the advancement of His kingdom? Nay, but the Old
Testament writings teem with warnings on so rudimentary
a theme.
On the contrary He himself declared what His purpose
was. It was not parable but prophetic parallel. The sea-burial
and resurrection of Jonah, a very unique event, foreshadowed
another event still more unique and momentous: “as Jonah
. . . so the Son of man.” As Jonah’s experience at God’s
hand was the guarantee of his divine mission to the Nine-
22 Matt. xxiv. 16. John i. 14, viii. 40, xiv. 6, xviii. 37.
THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH
64I
vites, so in his great Antitype’s resurrection lay the power
and appeal of His Gospel of salvation. What solemnity was
there not in the thought for Him, who was foretelling the
very crisis of the World’s salvation, and by means of the
past event in a measure guaranteeing the future one. It is
the method of this guarantee which claims our careful con¬
sideration. The link between the two is the period of “three
days.”23
Our Saviour used it repeatedly as an integral part of His
prophecy about what lay before Him. “In three days,” on
“the third day,” and it may have escaped the notice of stu¬
dents of the Greek Testament that every mention of it is
marked by emphasis as of a period of gravest significance.
Being such a teacher as He was it seems inconceivable that
He should have used for such a purpose what He knew to be
nothing more than myth or fable.
What then as to the other alternative, the assumption of
His ignorance? To put this to the test it is well to reverse the
usual process of reasoning. There was in Him such a super¬
human insight that prophetically He could foretell His own
death and resurrection. It was little likely to fail Him in the
lesser task of judging the truth of the record of Jonah in the
past.
Or again as to the particular criticism commonly advanced
about the accuracy of this very estimate of “three days and
nights.” Was He mistaken about it in reference to Himself?
But if He foreknew the days of His resting “in the heart of
the earth,” it were folly to refuse Him the equal knowledge
of the hours of its duration, especially as it was under His
own control and determination, who had “power” over His
own life “to lay it down and to take it again” : but it is this,
23 In His direct prophecies of His death the phrase used in Matt., Luke
and John is “the third day” (Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19. Luke ix. 22,
xviii. 33, xxiv. 7. John ii. 19). In Mark, according to the R.V. readings
it is “in three days” (Mark viii. 31, ix. 31, x. 34), the two phrases being
obviously intended to be identical in meaning. In all the passages about
“destroy this Temple” the phrase used is “in three days” in Matt, and
John alike.
642
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
stated in the comprehensive phraseology of the East, which
He gives as the identical measure of Jonah’s imprisonment
in the past with His own in the future, so that however many
hours it implied in the one case it implied equally in the
other. The weapon turns in the critic’s hands. Christ’s
“Jonah-word” emerges not as any evidence that He was ig¬
norant, but contrariwise that when He drew the historic
parallel He was “speaking that which He knew, and testify¬
ing that which He had seen,” having before Him the vision
of past and future alike and knowledge of Nature’s secrets
and the secrets of the Underworld. Truly, we can say, this
was no ignorant peasant man. Truly this was the Son of
God.
Queen’s College, Oxford. Ambrose John Wilson.
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE FOR
CHINA’S TROUBLES?
Christianity’s claim to a unique position among the faiths
of mankind as the one absolute and universal religion has
inevitably aroused the opposition not only of other mission¬
ary religions with which it has come into competition and
conflict, but also of purely national or racial religions which
have resented the assumption that if Christianity be true,
they themselves are, perforce, untrue. Throughout its his¬
tory, of course, Christianity has presented the double appeal
of its reasonableness and its results. While not at all vulner¬
able in the former appeal, yet by far the more generally ap¬
pealing is the visible evidence of the effect of the religion of
Jesus Christ upon human character, upon social conditions,
and upon national and international relations.
In awakening China, during the present decade perhaps
more than any previous period, serious questions have been
raised as to the validity of this experimental evidence for
Christianity; and this question has assumed two forms, viz.,
“If Christianity be the true religion, with the dynamic which
it claims, why does it not transform the life of ‘Christian
lands’?” and, “If Christianity be the universal religion, why
has its coming to China provoked strife and revolution and
been responsibile for so many of China’s troubles?” With
the former question the present paper does not deal, save
incidentally. The latter question, which is our theme, in¬
cludes one of fact and one of interpretation. Its considera¬
tion is appropriate to a Theological Review because it re¬
lates to the claims of Christianity itself as a system of faith
and ethics, and not merely to the influence of the Christian
Church, its methods or its missionaries.
That the China of the Twentieth Century has troubles is
manifest to all the world. Is Christianity responsible for
them? From the very beginning of Christian missionary
labors in China an affirmative reply to this question has been
voiced by some commercial interests, by certain diplomatic
representatives of western nations, by numerous flitting
644 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
tourists and cursory correspondents, and by anti-foreign,
anti-religious, anti-Christian Chinese of various classes and
ranks, in usually intemperate criticism of that of which they
know little, for which they care less, but which they find, in
one way or another, inimical to their own special interests or
reprobatory of their own manner of life. An emphatic nega¬
tive reply is frequently voiced by other men of commerce, less
prejudiced diplomatists, more observant tourists and news¬
paper men, and not only by Christian Chinese but by thou¬
sands of others who though they have not themselves broken
loose from inherited allegiances to other systems, yet can¬
not close their eyes to the immense benefits which Christian¬
ity has brought to their land; as, for example, the eminent
Dr. Hu Shih, who, in a recent number of The Forum, ac¬
knowledging himself an “agnostic materialist,” and confi¬
dently predicting Christianity’s failure, yet pays grateful
tribute to modern China’s great debt to Christian missions.
The former attitude is well illustrated by a recent article in
The English Review, by an ignorant and virulent Chinese
who styles himself “Mencius Junior,” but whose spirit is
quite antipodal to that of the ancient philosopher, Mencius.
The same Review publishes the antidote to this screed in an
able reply from a learned and temperate Chinese, Dr. T. T.
Lew, whose article, however, indicates that he would probably
not render his answer to our question in the form of an abso¬
lute negative. Indeed, few of those who best know China and
the history of Christianity in China for the past century and
more would think of entering an unqualified negative in
reply to the question as to Christianity’s responsibility for
China’s troubles; but, on the contrary, if the question should
read, Is Christianity responsible for many of China’s present
troubles? they would reply unhesitatingly in the affirmative,
and would even add, “Her responsibility for many of China’s
troubles, so far from being Christianity’s shame, is one of
her greatest glories, for these troubles have been the birth-
pangs of China’s new life.” To no land has Christianity’s
coming been all joy. In the first coming of the Prince of
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
645
Peace to Judea, He brought “not peace but a sword,” and set
men at variance against many of those who had been nearest
and dearest in the past. His coming to the Jews and His re¬
jection by them led to the final overthrow of the Jewish
commonwealth. His coming through His Apostles to Greece
and Rome precipitated strife which continued through many
centuries, and a ferment which transformed the nation. And
so it has been through all the ages since, and is today, in
China as in the rest of the world. Christianity has, by degrees,
assimilated all that is good in every civilization with which
it has come into contact; but it has never been absorbed by
and lost in that civilization, save when it has come in impure
form or has lost its own savor through the unfaithfulness of
its representatives. Being “salt,” it must, of its very nature,
disagree with and destroy impurity and corruption. Being
“light,” it must inevitably dissipate or drive out intellectual
and moral darkness. Then, and only then, is true peace se¬
cured, true and permanent progress possible. In so far as
this result has not yet been achieved in China, we may readily
admit, even exultingly assert, that Christianity is responsible
for many of China’s present “troubles.”
What are China’s present troubles? A by no means ex¬
haustive enumeration would include :
1. Her occupation of a position of political inequality
among nations, many of which do not possess a tithe of her
area or population, or of her venerable history.
2. The exercise of extraterritorial rights in China by the
nationals of most foreign lands.
3. The existence of “foreign concessions” upon Chinese
territory at various points of chief contact with the outside
world.
4. The presence of the military forces and gunboats, of
many nations, on Chinese territory or in Chinese waters.
5. Lack of freedom to adjust her own customs tariffs
upon foreign goods for the protection of her own industries
and commerce.
6. The development of large industrial establishments,
646
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
with the resultant emergence of all the perplexing and irri¬
tating industrial and social problems of the West.
7. The wide extension, at the psychological moment, of
both overt and covert communist and bolshevist propaganda.
8. Civil strife over the whole land between numerous
military chieftains, struggling among themselves for selfish
preeminence and preying upon the common people, on the
one side, and armies of patriotic Nationalists zealous for
a constitutional government, of the whole people, by the
whole people, and for the whole people, on the other side.
9. The increasingly abject poverty of nine-tenths of the
people.
10. An awakening realization of national weakness in the
well-nigh universal illiteracy of China’s people.
11. An increased consciousness of the failure of her sud¬
den nominal change from a monarchical to a republican
form of government to actually “proclaim liberty through¬
out the land, to all the inhabitants thereof,” much less to es¬
tablish such liberty as the possession and heritage of all her
people.
12. A reluctant recognition of the family or clan system
as an inadequate center or unit for Chinese society, of the
family loyalty as too narrow a support for a modern nation
either in individual integrity or in right relations with other
nations.
13. The decay of the spirit of reverence throughout
China, especially among the younger generation.
14. The introduction, along with the best that the West
has to offer, in science, ethics and religion, of much that the
West has outgrown of pseudo-science, much that the Chris¬
tian West repudiates of moral corruption, and much that the
conservative West refuses to recognize as “pure religion
and undefiled.”
15. The resurgence of the production and consumption of
opium and other narcotics.
16. The residence and varied occupation in China of hun¬
dreds of mis-representatives of “Christian civilization.”
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
647
17. The largely undeveloped state of most of the national
resources, and the impossibility of developing them under the
above conditions and without foreign capital.
18. The establishment in China of a Christian Church,
which, in creed, organization, ritual and method, is largely
foreign.
19. A wide-spread opinion that the loyalty of the Chinese
is being undermined by the large number and size of Chris¬
tian educational institutions, and the fact that they all prop¬
agate the Christian religion.
20. Divided counsels as to the Christian message, the
function of the Church, the education of its ministry, and the
aim of Christian education in general.
Rather a formidable array of troubles in itself, and doubt¬
less others could be added to the list ; but our question is, for
how many of these, and to what degree, is the coming of
Christianity to China directly or indirectly responsible ? and,
secondly, to what degree is that responsibility a culpability?
Let us consider these twenty troubles one by one.
1. The first trouble is, perhaps, the rawest of China’s re¬
cent irritations, the outstanding point of expostulation or
vituperation in all anti-foreign articles published recently in
China or the West. Half a century ago, China, in her ig¬
norance of herself and of the world, did not care what the
rest of the world thought of her, and felt quite capable of
returning in good measure any contempt or injury meted
out to her. A quarter of a century ago, after awaking to the
realization that retaliation was vain and resistance impos¬
sible, China settled down to learn of the West all those things
which made the West strong and the lack of which left the
East weak, things already rapidly acquiring by her neighbor,
Japan; and, having at the same time, through the agency of
the World War, come to clearer understanding also of the
weaknesses of the West, China has recently determined to
assert her right to deal and negotiate with other nations as
her equals and not as her superiors. Still realizing that, by
the criterion of arms and of finance, she has not yet attained
648
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
to an equality with the Great Powers of the world, she would
base her claims upon the natural and inalienable right of
every nation to maintain its sovereignty within its own bor¬
ders and over its own people, to determine its own internal ad¬
ministration according to its own laws, and to conduct its
own foreign relations according to the laws of civilized
nations, without forcible hindrance by other nations which
may happen to have larger armies or navies. For such laud¬
able aspirations the Christian Church has only praise, and
rejoices to be entitled to credit for having endeavored to
cultivate this sort of patriotism in all Chinese to whom she
has taught the Christian religion. From the beginning of
Protestant missionary history, Christian missionaries have
deprecated the selfish aggressions of western powers; and
after the Boxer upheaval of 1900 were the first, not only to
forgive the atrocities which bereaved them of those dearer
than life, but to urge lenient judgment upon the Chinese be¬
cause of the great provocation they had received through the
aggressions of western nations and the actual beginning of
a cold-blooded partitioning of the Chinese empire. With few
exceptions, missionaries have been advocates of the prompt
return to China of all aggressively or punitively appropriated
territories, of the early withdrawal of foreign garrisons, and
of the universal application of the Golden Rule to interna¬
tional relations. They have had neither part nor sympathy in
the “imperialistic” policies of western nations. The same
principle has held true of personal relations : the representa¬
tives of the Christian Church being less affected than any
other class of foreigners with the “superiority complex” in
relation to China, and refraining consistently from all vio¬
lent and contemptuous treatment of the Chinese people. This
is not saying that no missionary ever felt or exhibited an
attitude of superiority toward the Chinese, but such cases
have been the very rare exception, and increasingly so as
the Chinese have disclosed and developed qualities worthy of
admiration and emulation. That there should have been, in
the beginning, some feeling of superiority of privilege or of
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
649
attainment, will appear inevitable when one compares for a
moment the Chinese and western civilizations at the close of
the nineteenth century; but in so far as Christians have failed
to treat the Chinese as at least potential equals, they have
failed to live up to the Christianity which declares that God
has “made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face
of the earth,” and to the example of the Master, who made it
clear that in Him there should be no distinction of “male and
female, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free.”
2. A closely related trouble is the exercise by foreigners
of extraterritorial rights throughout China, demanding the
trial of all judicial cases involving foreigners by their own
consular authorities and not by the Chinese courts, thus im¬
plying a lack of confidence in those courts and asserting a
measure of sovereignty over Chinese territory. Although
these rights have been claimed at times by missionaries and
for them, yet it has not been as Christians but as citizens of
foreign nations, for whom these rights have been insisted
upon by their own governments, and will be insisted upon,
regardless of the occupation of these citizens or their con¬
sent, until such time as the Chinese courts can assure a fair
equivalent of the justice afforded to Chinese in our own
courts. Christianity did not demand the right in the first
instance, and is by far the most eager pleader for its early
relinquishment. Of certain special privileges of residence and
purchase of property in the interior, early demanded by cer¬
tain nations on behalf of Roman Catholic missionaries, Pro¬
testant missionaries have also availed themselves, but only
for the advantage of the Chinese people ; and these privileges
they are willing to surrender at the request of these people.
3. In several port cities of China, such as Shanghai, Can¬
ton, Hankow and Tientsin, there exist municipal “conces¬
sions,” certain areas over which China has, from time to
time, sometimes under insistence, sometimes asking a special
favor, yielded all authority of control to one or another
foreign nation, or to several in combination. Even the
Chinese living in the concession pass under the control of the
65O THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
foreigner, except as the concession may itself constitute
mixed courts for the trial of Chinese. These Chinese resi¬
dents usually largely outnumber the foreigners, and prefer
foreign municipal administration to that maintained in their
own cities. That is why they are there. Yet these concessions
form “cities of refuge” for China’s political offenders and
for many criminals, fugitives from Chinese justice, whose
extradition from the foreign concessions is rarely accom¬
plished. Foreign minds and foreign money have created these
great cities out of former sand-flats and swamps, and pro¬
vided in them far better sanitation and other conditions of
labor and business, for myriads of Chinese, than any Chinese
city affords, greatly facilitating industry and commerce; yet
the constant exercise of foreign authority on Chinese terri¬
tory, and the shielding of Chinese offenders, are naturally
irritating to an intensely awakened national consciousness.
As Christianity is in no way responsible for the evils of the
concession principle, so she can claim no credit for its ad¬
vantages to the Chinese people, except in so far as she
has established churches in the concessions, which do some¬
thing to relieve the darkness of any oriental city, and as
she has made the concessions headquarters of missionary
propaganda for the whole nation.
4. Closely connected with these troubles is the presence, in
such concessions, along certain lines of railway which con¬
nect the capital with the sea-coast, and at the foreign lega¬
tions in Peking, of considerable foreign military forces for
the protection of the foreigners living in these areas ; also the
presence, along China’s coast and in several interior rivers,
of foreign gunboats for the protection of foreign life and
property. Inasmuch as the Christian missionary is a foreign
citizen, and cannot cease to be such, his own country holds
itself responsible for his protection, whatever the missionary
may think of the matter. Had these forces not been available
in many parts of China in 1900, and even at Nanking dur¬
ing the present year, hundreds more of foreign lives would
certainly have been sacrificed to the frenzy of unreasoning
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE 65 1
mobs or the barbarity of deliberately anti-foreign soldiery.
Nevertheless the Christian missionary prays for a China
which shall require neither guards nor gunboats.
5. China’s lack of freedom to fix her own import tariffs,
increase her own revenue from this source and protect her
own industries, is another serious trouble ; but it is one for
which Christianity is in no way responsible, and one which
foreign Christians are eager to have relieved, at the earliest
possible date, whatever increase of the expense of their own
living and working may be involved, as they believe that the
spirit of Christianity demands that each nation shall be free
to determine for itself, or in equal negotiation, the terms on
which it will purchase the commodities of other nations.
6. The emergence in China of the now world- wide indus¬
trial problem, hitherto comparatively unimportant as each
farmer worked for himself and concentrated industries were
almost unknown, is an increasingly serious trouble. With
the establishment of large cotton mills, factories and depart¬
ment stores, all the industrial problems of the West have pre¬
sented themselves and are demanding answers with all the
insistence to which the West has become accustomed. A
pitifully low wage-scale is no new trouble for China, but
is made the more pitiful by recent large increases in the cost
of living. A seven-day labor week is no innovation in that
land which has not known a Sabbath, but it is made the more
murderous by the exaction of twelve to sixteen hours of
labor per day. Labor by women and children has been a com¬
monplace of Chinese life through the centuries, but it now
reaches its limit of atrocity by its removal from the open
field to the dark, dirty, ill-ventilated factory. The Chinese
themselves are the least merciful employers, but foreign -
owned and operated industries set few good examples.
Christianity is not responsible for the emergence of the prob¬
lems, but is devoting more and more sympathetic attention
to their adequate solution, as it is in all the world, thus
demonstrating that it is no more “capitalistic” than it is “im¬
perialistic.” Various Missions, the Young Men’s and Young
652 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Women’s Christian Associations, the National Christian
Conference of 1922 and the National Christian Council at its
annual meetings and through its officers and standing com¬
mittees, have earnestly called attention to the problems, to
the unique sufficiency of Christian principles for their solu¬
tion; and have sought in every way to bring to bear law,
Gospel and public sentiment for the practical application of
those principles.
7. Unfortunately, another trouble has emerged in the at¬
tempt to solve these industrial and social problems in a
moment, by the revolutionary and anarchistic processes of
bolshevism and communism. As in Russia, these doctrines
have been propagated in China largely by anti-religious, or
anti-Christian, agencies, advocating class hatreds rather than
universal love as the solution of existing social evils; and
the Christian Church bears only the responsibility of afford¬
ing, in certain of her higher schools, freedom and encourage¬
ment for the perversion of her own social principles by
certain misguided teachers and their students. Christianity
itself must stand acquitted of any part in this perversion, and
stands four-square in opposition to all arraying of class
against class.
8. A most acute trouble, during the past few years, is the
prevalence, over the whole land, of civil strife between
numerous self -constituted military chieftains, who with a
high hand appropriate the government’s revenues which
should go to communications, education and other popular
benefits; conscript the people, confiscate their chattels and
crops, devastate the land, render commerce impossible by
commandeering railways and steamships, and make bandits
out of honest citizens, almost altogether for selfish ends. It
might be admitted at once that Christianity is free from re¬
sponsibility for this trouble, were it not for the fact that one
of the most noted of these military leaders is “the Christian
General,” Feng Yu Hsiang. That he is truly a Christian the
present writer thinks abundantly witnessed by the unparal¬
leled discipline of his army, from which all liquor, tobacco
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
653
and immoral practices have been actually excluded to a
degree known in no other army in the world ; by his engage¬
ment of scores of Christian workers, evangelists and perma¬
nent chaplains, for the thorough Christianization of his
army; by the widely diversified industrial training of every
soldier in camp, “that he may be able to support his family
and serve the community in case he ceases to be a soldier” ; by
his preference for peace instead of war whenever possible;
by the simplicity of his own life and that which he requires
of every soldier; by his lack of self-seeking, as compared
with other militarists in the wars in which he has engaged ;
and by his consistent helpfulness to the Christian Church
wherever he has gone. That General Feng’s Christian knowl¬
edge has its limits; that he has been greatly deceived by
Russian counsellors, and that, through ignorance and heat
of patriotism, he has made serious mistakes in his attitude
toward the British and other foreigners, may readily be
conceded ; but that he is a “renegade Christian,” or a “rascally
turn-coat,” may not. He has had to choose, more than once,
between loyalty to a superior officer and loyalty to his
country’s good, between the usual military indifference to the
people’s wrongs and the bearing of arms against military
despots; and there is good prospect that the world may yet
reverse its present unfavorable judgment of the final effect
upon Christianity’s reputation of the stormy career of this
remarkable man. For his outstanding patriotism, and for
that of the moderate nationalists who have had to contend
with the radicals in their own party in order to establish
peace instead of bitter class strife as China’s future, Chris¬
tianity rejoices to accept the credit which is her due.
9. For the poverty of China’s people almost the only
responsibility of Christianity is for her sympathetic efforts
toward its amelioration. In certain cases the profession of
Christianity has doubtless impoverished individuals through
ostracism by family and society, or through the necessity of
abandoning unchristian employment ; but in many other cases
the social and economic condition has been improved through
654 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
the training afforded in Christian schools; so much so,
indeed, that the Church has been compelled to increase its
vigilance as to admissions to membership, in order to guard
against unworthy motives. The industrial schools and work¬
shops established by the Church have saved thousands from
starvation in ordinary times, while the porridge kitchens and
manifold forms of direct relief in famine times, the initia¬
tion and most of the administration of which have been by
the Christian Church, have saved the lives of millions.
10. For the age-long and nation-wide trouble of illiteracy,
Christianity, of course, is not only free from all culpable
responsibility, but is both primarily and secondarily respon¬
sible for the awakened realization on the part of the people of
its well-nigh universality, its humiliation, and its handicap ;
and also for the efforts thus far put forth toward its remedy.
Christianity is fundamentally opposed to ignorance. Chris¬
tian compassion for the three hundred and eighty or more
million of China’s four hundred million people unable to
read and write has led the missionary and the Chinese Chris¬
tian to establish schools of all grades, to publish simple text¬
books at cheapest price, to devise systems of phonetic script,
Romanization, and other alphabetic substitutes for the thou¬
sands of complicated Chinese characters, to form educational
associations for the discussion of methods, and especially to
stress literacy for the girls and women of China, who had
been almost entirely despised and neglected in such paltry
educational provision as had been made by government or
private interest in the past. And today Christian Chinese
trained in America are the prime-movers in the Mass Educa¬
tion Movement, which, through its “Thousand Characters”
bids fair to create before many years not only a “Bible-
reading Church,” but also a literature-loving people. Other
agencies, of course, have joined in and contributed mightily
to the revolt against illiteracy, some of them being in posi¬
tions in which they could accomplish speedier results than the
Church ; but one moment’s comparison between the China of
thirty years ago, with almost no modern education, no news-
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
655
papers and no literature for no readers, with the China of
today, with schools of all grades, hundreds of newspapers
and magazines, quantities of current literature in the ver¬
nacular, for millions of readers, will give some conception of
China’s debt to Christianity for fathering and cherishing
this great uplift to her people.
11. It is in part owing to this intellectual awakening that
the Chinese generally are increasingly conscious of the failure
of their new republic to function in anything like the degree
anticipated at its beginning in 1912. A republic of illiterates
is almost, if not quite, a contradiction in terms. When the
change from empire to republic came, three-fourths of the
people knew nothing of what was going on ; nine-tenths of
the other fourth had no part in it, but were simply told that
republicanism meant liberty, and inferred from the very term
which expresses it in Chinese, — tzu-yu = self-following or
originating, — that liberty meant licence, “every man doing
that which was right in his own eyes,” with consequences
comparable to those in the Book of Judges, where Israel did
the same thing. We may truly say that Christianity was
largely, but not culpably, responsibile for the revolution and
the republic, but she had done her best in previous years to
prevent those misconceptions of liberty which have played so
large a part in the failure of the republic to function properly.
Christianity has stood for liberty first and last, but only for
that liberty which is found in “perfect obedience to a perfect
law,” the liberty which comes from “knowing the truth,” the
liberty which finds its highest expression in the love of God
and the service of fellowman. If Christianity had been more
vigorously propagated, more truly lived, in China during the
century previous to 1912, though the revolution might not
. have come any earlier, it would have come much more ade¬
quately. No factor had contributed more largely than Chris¬
tianity to the unrest, the discontent, which finally led to the
revolutionary outburst of 1911-12, and most of the leaders
of that movement were either Christians or men who had
been educated in Christian schools, or lived long under
656 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Christian influences. Of course there were political and social
factors apart from these, such as realization that the M&nchu
dynasty was utterly effete and impotent, and selfish ambi¬
tion ; but dissatisfaction with the progress made by the slowly
awakening rulers and desire for a larger freedom to catch up
with the West in all the elements of modern civilization, that
“divine discontent” which always regards “the good as a
great enemy of the best,” had laid hold of many strong men;
and they proved strong enough to accomplish the revolution
on paper, though not strong enough to preserve harmony
among themselves for the successful administration of the
republic. It remains to be seen, — and the present writer is
very optimistic, — whether Christianity, having started the
republic, will be strong enough to save it from itself.
12. China has been driven inevitably to a reluctant recog¬
nition of fundamental weakness in her social and political
fabric through age-long over-emphasis on the family (per¬
haps clan is the better word, for the Chinese “family” is not
limited to father, mother and children, but includes all living
generations, the wives of all the males, and in a certain
sense also the generations departed, for China knows more
of the power of “the dead hand” than any other people, per¬
haps). Not only does the individual lose himself in the clan,
but the community and the nation also are inferior interests,
subservient to the clan. It is this which lies at the basis of
two great lacks of the Chinese people in times past, the lack
of patriotism and the lack of public spirit. Men sought edu¬
cation and public office normally for personal fame and gain,
but even more for family fame and gain; seldom and inci¬
dentally for the benefit of the country. Most young men
shunned military service because it would be degrading to the
family, and the defence of the nation was thus left to hire¬
lings. Anything which would simply be of advantage to the
community, while not directly benefitting the family, like the
improvement of roads, joint draining of fields, etc., aroused
little interest. Thus it came about that neither China’s an¬
cient racial consciousness, nor her equally ancient clan loy-
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
657
alty, had succeeded in making a nation of her; and it was
necessary for the Twentieth Century to introduce other in¬
fluences for the development of a genuine national conscious¬
ness. Even yet it is not unified, but it is hopefully developing
in the midst of confusion and strife. The otherwise-to-be-
regretted foreign aggressions have had at least this good
effect; not merely have they awakened China to a sense of
her own weakness, but also to a perception of one of the chief
sources of that weakness in the fact that, not only does she
consist of numerous rather independent provinces, but also of
more numerous somewhat independent and self-centered clans.
But another large influence in this awakening of China’s na¬
tional consciousness has been the one which we have held, in
good measure, responsible for several other of China’s
troubles, namely, the educational influence of Christianity’s
impact upon China. Increased intelligence among the people,
knowledge of the strong nationalism of other peoples and the
internationalism for which it is a prerequisite, and in which
it finds its highest perfection, realization that while the family
is the unit in forming the community, it is not the ultimate
unit nor yet the whole, comparison of the results of solidarity
and individualism in history, and all these things related to,
and finding their power in, loyalty to the One God of all
nations, Christianity has brought to China, as the secret of
highest prosperity, “rendering to Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s and to God the things which are God’s.” Chris¬
tianity teaches no man to despise or neglect either himself or
his family ; but it also allows no man to think his whole duty
done when he has looked after the interests of self and
family. He still has a duty to perform to the nation and to
the world which may take precedence over either or both of
the others.
13. Yet another of China’s troubles grows in part from
this very disturbing yet wholesome awakening of national
consciousness, namely, the decay of the spirit of reverence.
A foreign-educated Chinese, resident in Peking, remarked to
the present writer a year or two ago, that one of China’s
658 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
greatest historic weaknesses was the lack of a spirit of ab¬
stract reverence. Concrete reverences for individual persons,
places and ideas had been many, but the spirit of reverence in
the abstract was lacking ; hence concrete reverences, and their
outgrowing allegiances, easily broke down. While quite con¬
trary to the prevailing impression with reference to the
Chinese, yet the accuracy of this statement is revealed es¬
pecially in recent history. Twenty years ago, a sudden access
of zeal for Confucius, whose pedestal seemed to be tottering
under the impact of the new education, led to the sage’s
canonization by imperial authority as a Divine Being, “the
equal of Heaven and Earth.” Yet it was but a few years be¬
fore Confucius, his books and principles, were practically
thrown into the discard and Christian schools were almost the
only ones which continued to teach the venerable classics.
Twenty years ago, the Emperor was regarded as the “Son of
Heaven”; now, “none so poor to do him reverence.” Twenty
years ago, the elderly man was the honorable man, and the
teacher was bowed down to by the taught ; now, the elderly
man is discredited and despised, while the teacher is directed
by his pupils as to what he may teach them and when, and
they give him such attention as they please. No one would
have supposed, twenty years ago, that the Chinese had it in
them to grow so iconoclastic; but the reason lies not only in the
advent of superstition-destroying science, but even more in
the fact that, for thousands of years, they have had no one,
supreme, infinite and eternal, divine object of reverence in
their hearts ; consequently their minds have been the buffet of
shifting winds. Neither Confucianism, with its worship of
an impersonal heaven and earth, nor Buddhism with its awe
for Gautama’s avatars, nor Taoism with its fear of multi¬
tudes of evil spirits, has provided a worthy object of rever¬
ence. Mohammedanism has never borne such witness to
Allah or his prophet as to call out general reverence. Even
ancestor-worship, so powerful in preserving the race through
millenniums, has called for too great strain of the imagina¬
tion, — or ignored it altogether, — and it has remained for
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
659
Christianity to make manifest the insufficiency of minor rev¬
erences, to inspire a rather violent rejection of them, and to
offer in their place a reverence for Almighty God, which
leads to the right allocation of all other reverences in the re¬
lations of human society. Christianity, of course, is not re¬
sponsible for the propagation, by agitators, by translation of
western books, by superficial observations in Europe and
America, of wrong conceptions of democracy or of the ele¬
ments vital to western civilization, which have had large part
in destroying reverence; nor has it ever countenanced the
now almost universal declension of the spirit of reverence,
both abstract and concrete, which marks the Twentieth
Century.
14. China has also received certain other unfortunate im¬
portations from the West, both material and intellectual. So-
called “Christian nations,” as well as Shintoist Japan, are
largely responsible for the introduction and perpetuation of
the death-dealing traffic in opium, morphia and highly spirit¬
uous liquors, and the, at least wasteful, cigaret; but it has
been in spite of their “Christianity,” not because of it. The
same thing may be said of translations of eighteenth and
nineteenth century philosophy and science, long discarded in
the West, and twentieth century radicalism of all stripes.
National and provincial universities have invited the extreme
agnostics and materialists of Europe and America for
months or years of lectures, while even Christian universities
have welcomed as exchange or visiting professors and lec¬
turers the most liberal theologians. For this last fact, unfor¬
tunately, the Christian Church cannot disclaim all responsibil¬
ity; but it is not her Christianity which has rendered China
this disservice.
15. Not all of the responsibility for China’s opium curse,
however, can be laid to other nations, for another of her
troubles is the fact that, after a heroic and magnificently suc¬
cessful effort to relieve herself of both the importation and
the domestic cultivation of opium even before the time agreed
upon with the importing nations, China’s military leaders,
66o
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
and others coveting large incomes regardless of the common
welfare, have not only permitted but even compelled the cul¬
tivation of the poppy, the consumption of which has recently
returned to approximately the figures of pre-prohibition days.
Fortunately, for none of this retrogression can Christianity
be held responsible, for missionary and Chinese Christian
alike have been leaders in the denunciation of the traffic and
the education of the people as to its evils.
1 6. Of the same order of troubles is the presence in China,
at all times, of hundreds of mis-representatives of Christian
civilization. So much has been written on this subject that it
will suffice to say here that one of the greatest of all hin¬
drances to the progress of genuine Christianity in China,
therefore a serious bar to the development of the “New
China” along right lines, is the fact that, not only in the
capital and the great port cities, but here and there through¬
out the country, are to be found many who boast of their
citizenship in “Christian” lands, yet live lives the very op¬
posite of all which Christianity represents. One of the chief
inspirations of the “Anti-Christian Movement,” which at¬
tained considerable proportions a few years ago, and has
by no means yet subsided, was the presence of these false
witnesses for Christianity in so many places. In so far as
missionaries or Chinese Christians have been guilty of
preaching what they do not practice, or practising what they
do not preach, they have made themselves culpably respon¬
sible for one of China’s real and great troubles.
17. Among China’s material troubles is the fact that so
large a proportion of her material resources is as yet unde¬
veloped, and is at present being developed but slowly. For
this, of course, Christianity is not responsible; but, on the
contrary, to her is due, in large measure, that increased en¬
lightenment which has dissipated age-old superstitions pre¬
venting the opening of mines, and has made possible such de¬
velopment of resources as has already taken place, the pace
of which development was accelerating every year until
China fell on the present troublous times of civil strife. Fear
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE 66l
of offending the spirits of earth and air and water had de¬
prived the Chinese, through all ages, of most of their ma¬
terial heritage ; but now Science and Christianity are cooper¬
ating to bring them into their own.
18. The basis of China’s fear of the establishment of a
foreign Church under foreign control is much more imagin¬
ary than real. If the Christian missionaries from Europe and
America were to fulfill their Master, Christ’s, commission
and take to the Chinese, as well as to all other nations, the
Gospel of a Divine Saviour, it was inevitable that they should
personally direct, for those who accepted the Gospel as true
and became new men and women in Christ Jesus, the laying
of the foundations of their new organization for service. It
was at the earnest entreaty of those to whom they ministered
that they formulated the first creeds, introduced the first
polities, erected the first buildings, and assumed superintend¬
ence for a time; and it was inevitable that all these things
should be formed somewhat after the pattern of the West. In
one respect a serious mistake was often made, which has been
carefully avoided in fields of later opening; namely, the pro¬
vision of churches, schools and other buildings beyond any
probable ability of the Chinese Christians to sustain when
eventually left to their own resources. Yet it was the mistake
of kindness, not of desire to rule, and the missionary of today
is eager to yield all authority and to transfer all responsibility
to Chinese Christian leaders, himself continuing to cooperate,
with funds and force, as long as the Chinese Church needs
and desires such help, insisting only that, so long as this
support and cooperation continue, the Church shall be a gen¬
uinely Christian Church ; but the more indigenously Chinese
the better. The Christian, like his Master, conies “not to be
ministered unto but to minister.”
19. The fear of a denationalization of the Chinese people
by Christian educational institutions, most of which have
always had foreign principals, numerous foreign teachers,
and a majority of foreigners on their boards of management,
and all of which have taught Christianity, most of them re-
662
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
quiring its study in the regular curriculum, has an equally
imaginary basis. The anti-religionists, who would do away
with all religion as “superstition,” and the anti-Christians,
who object to Christianity both on account of its alleged
“unscientific superstitions” and its exclusiveness, have con¬
vened conferences, distributed literature, stirred up educa¬
tional authorities and agitated among the people, for the
closing of Christian schools, the prohibition of religious
teaching in all schools, or at least insistence upon govern¬
ment registration and regulation of Christian schools to the
exclusion of all required study of Christianity. In the first
two aims they have largely failed, and the decision of the
third is still suspended during these months of civil strife. In
these days when “patriotism” and “nationalism” are the
chief words in China’s vocabulary, it is not strange if the
majority of Chinese Christians advocates the acceptance by
the schools of almost any conditions of government recogni¬
tion, especially as the failure to register a school means the
disqualification of its graduates for entering any registered
school and for securing government attestation of their
diplomas. But many Missions and Boards are justly appre¬
hensive of relinquishing the distinctively Christian character
of their schools in accepting the conditions of such registra¬
tion. Certain it is that neither Christian Church nor school is
denationalizing the Chinese people; on the contrary, all
Christians are seeking to build up a sturdier patriotism than
China has ever known. Christianity has always made better
citizens.
20. We conclude the consideration of China’s chief pres¬
ent troubles by referring to a serious disturbance of the
Church itself, both directly and indirectly affecting the entire
Chinese people. The existence of divided counsels, primarily
among the foreigners who have gone from their home lands
to help China, but latterly also among Chinese Christian
leaders, serious divergences of opinion as to the Christian
message, the missionary motive, the function of the Church,
the education of its ministry and the aim of Christian edu¬
cation in general, interferes sadly with unity of plan and
IS CHRISTIANITY RESPONSIBLE
663
harmony of effort toward the Christianization of that great
land. This cleavage is far more serious, in its fact and in its
portent, than any of the old differences between the denomin¬
ations, which have always been less sharply marked on the
foreign mission field than in the home lands, and of late years
have yielded to many union movements. But now the tend¬
ency in China is for the young Chinese leaders, held back by
none of the foreign inheritance of reverence for Christian
tradition or early associations, to carry the radical theories
brought to them by their foreign teachers, ruthlessly to their
logical conclusion, throwing out of the way any venerable
articles of faith which seem to stand in the way, and calmly
planning an all-inclusive, practically creedless, “Christian”
Church. The present emphasis on nationalism and autonomy
and on the religious values of ancient Chinese culture, tends
to accentuate this tendency and lead to the apprehension that
either there will be one Church in China so liberal as hardly
to merit the name of Christian, or else two Churches so
sharply contrasted in faith and aim as to have little in com¬
mon. Several union movements have already been halted by
these conditions, while others already consummated have
been dissolved because of the increasingly wide divergence of
views, of policies and of methods. There have been partings
of chief friends, reluctant organizations for the defense of
the Bible, grief over the trend of large institutions, many
heart-burnings, some heart-breakings. The fearless, self-sac¬
rificing preaching of the simple Gospel has played so large a
part, during the last century, in awakening China, in produc¬
ing her growing-pains and providing their remedy in every
sort of progress, that it is strongly to be hoped that the Chris¬
tian Church will not revert to compromise methods simply
because “a scientific age demands the abandonment of the
supernatural.” Nothing but the supernatural would have suf¬
ficed to produce Christianity’s record in China in the past :
nothing less than the supernatural is capable of regenerating
the troubled “Land of Sinim.”
Princeton, NJ. Courtenay Hughes Fenn.
REVIEWS OF
RECENT LITERATURE
APOLOGETICAL THEOLOGY
The Basis of the Christian Faith. A Modern Defense of the Christian
Religion. By Floyd E. Hamilton, A.B., B.D., Th.M., Professor of
Bible, Union Christian College, Pyengyang, Korea. New York:
George H. Doran Company. 1927. Pp. xiv, 335.
In his preface to this book Professor Hamilton informs us that he has
attempted to write a defense of the Christian Religion that will not
presuppose too much knowledge on the part of the reader, nor on the
other hand be so brief and superficial as to fail in power to convince
those who have real doubts concerning the points in question. The con¬
tent of the book is as follows : Chapter I opens with an account of
Reason, and the way in which it functions in the acquisition of knowl¬
edge. The author’s presentation is clear and careful, but one might be
disposed to question the Kantian epistemology, defended on p. 23, as af¬
fording an adequate support for the theistic arguments presented later
in the volume. Chapter II considers the External Universe, refutes
Materialism and Pantheism, and establishes Theism, for which in the
following chapter the arguments are given in more detail. In order to
avoid the errors of Materialism Professor Hamilton thinks it best to
adopt what he terms Personal Pluralistic Idealism. While in full sym¬
pathy with the purpose of the author, the reviewer feels disposed to doubt
either the necessity or the expediency of supporting any form of Ideal¬
ism for such a purpose, since, even if Idealism is contrary to Materialism,
it nevertheless tends logically towards Pantheism, and involves those who
accept it in difficulties on the problem of evil, personal responsibility,
and the reality of the external universe. Chapter IV, one of the best
chapters in the book, is a long and skilful argument against Evolution
as a theory of the world’s genesis. Chapter V argues the Reasonableness
of Supernaturalism, and with it the probability and possibility of special
revelation. Chapters VI and VII contrast the ethnic religions and Chris¬
tianity with a view to demonstrating the absoluteness of the latter. This
brings us to the Bible and the arguments in support of its unity, his-
orical trustworthiness, integrity, genuineness, and authenticity (Chapters
VIII to XI). Thereupon follows in Chapters XII and XIII an excellent
and interesting account of the historical and literary criticism of the Old
and New Testaments. Chapters XIV and XV discuss the more notable
alleged discrepancies and doctrinal difficulties of Holy Scripture. Chap¬
ter XVI is an orderly and convincing statement of the arguments for
the bodily Resurrection of the Lord, and Chapter XVII gives a com¬
prehensive demonstration of the fulfilment of prophecy. The final
Qiapter XVIII contains a brief outline of the argument from Christian
experience. It would have added to the usefulness of the book for more
RECENT LITERATURE
665
advanced students of the topic if notes showing the continuity of the
arguments with the historic proofs for Christianity as the evangelical
scholarship of the past has developed them had been added along with a
wider selection of collateral readings. But the volume as it stands is
scriptural, scholarly, comprehensive and readable. Every pastor should
read it himself and recommend it to his co-workers in church and sab¬
bath school.
Lincoln University, Pa. George Johnson.
Introduction to the Psychology of Religion. By Frank S. Hickman.
New York and Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press. 1926. Pp. 558.
This book is one of the college series of the Abingdon Religious Edu¬
cation Texts. Its contents are as follows : Part I deals with the origin
and method of the psychology of religion, and with the definition of re¬
ligion and of religious experience. Part II considers the major factors in
religious experience, with special emphasis on the structure, racial roots,
and function of the personal factor. Part III takes up the genesis and
growth of religious experience; describes normal religious development;
defines and explains conversion ; examines the struggle against sin ; and
shows how and why religion functions as a control of conduct. Part IV
is devoted to a study of worship, prayer, and the various kinds of inter¬
mediaries in worshipful activities. Part V, the concluding portion of the
book, is a psychological study of belief in general and belief in God and
in Inspiration in particular. The volume has many excellences. The
style is clear; the information given is comprehensive; the quotations
from the literature of the subject are abundant and well-selected; each
chapter ends with a summarizing paragraph that should prove enlight¬
ening to the most hurried reader ; there are at frequent intervals interest¬
ing and thought-provoking questions for study and discussion; there are
carefully chosen and specific reading-lists ; the paper, printing and
binding conform to approved text-book standards. The student who
wishes an interestingly written and instructive survey of the present state
of opinion concerning psychology of religion in the United States, may be
safely advised to read this work.
The author is cautious and moderate in most of his statements. Never¬
theless those who make it their ideal to combine loyalty to evangelical
Christianity with devotion to painstaking and accurate scientific method
will find the present volume unsatisfactory in many respects. The evan¬
gelical Christian must believe in the supernatural as other than the
natural. He cannot be satisfied with the efforts of those who urge as a
substitute “the spiritualizing of the natural” and who would replace the
old defence of the faith with an “immanence apologetic.” He must see
therefore in Christian religious experience a series of conscious states
the author of which in a very definite sense is the Holy Spirit. He will
not be satisfied when efforts are made to equate Christian religious ex¬
perience with non-Christian religious experience, and to find in each the
same causative factors. He will never agree that the work of the Holy
Spirit should be ignored or shoved into the background in favor of the
666
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
so-called natural factors with which we are advised science can alone
deal. But in these respects the book under review takes the well known
position of modernism. Thus the conversion of St. Paul is traced back
to previous experiences that were operative in his subconsciousness and
that emerged with startling suddenness on the Damascus road, but what
Paul himself tells us was the real cause, the actual objective vision of
Jesus Christ, is practically left out of account. Again the tremendous
conversion experience of Martin Luther is accounted for by such factors
as “strains of inheritance in Luther’s blood,” and “mystical sensitivity in¬
herited through his mother’s line,” and “streams of suggestion” from
German mystics. Nothing is said about the Holy Spirit as the personal
agent to whom, as efficient cause Luther and his church assign such ex¬
periences. But the Christian who accepts the authority of the Apostles
and their teaching as normative can never afford without loss to abandon
his sturdy faith in the supernatural as they conceived it, in favor of any
materializing or pantheizing substitutes such as the modernist of the
day offers him in such abundance.
We believe that the evangelical standpoint sketched in the foregoing
is not in any respect impossible of combination with a rigid scientific
method of getting the facts and a valid method of arguing from the facts
as ascertained. The volume before us contains less than the usual treatise
on the subject of that miscellaneous and undocumented information
that passes current as psychology of religion in England and America.
By this we mean heterogeneous details drawn from other sciences:
sociology, anthropology, medical psychology, biology, physiology, com¬
parative religion and theology, folk-lore, etc., etc., that do not help but
merely confuse the picture. But it does not exclude them. To our way of
thinking psychology of religion should be an empirical science of the
forms of religious experience, and its efforts should be by exact experi¬
mental methods to isolate the particular complex that figures in such
experiences. But this is not the method of the treatise before us. It intro¬
duces such metaphysical entities as subconsciousness, unconscious cere¬
bration, suggestion, etc., and the fantastic paraphernalia of the psycho¬
analysts by which the sober and steady advance of normal psychology
has been retarded. It gives us the mythologies of the biologists in place
of the painstaking ascertainment of the actual facts. It tells us much
about the religious experiences of the insane, the primitive, the savage,
the abnormal, and the individuals who belong to what Prof. James
called the “lunatic fringe,” but not so much as we could wish about the
normal religious experiences of the Christian men and women, young
persons, and little children, with whom the Christian pastor and teacher
is in contact and whom he should understand in order to give them help
and joy when they ask for it and need it.
May we not hope that our universities will some day produce some one
who combines a warm hearted evangelical faith with devotion to
scientific ideals, and who in addition is so expert in the science of mind
that he can give the pastor and educator a book in psychology of re¬
ligion that conserves the ideals without which Christianity is impossible.
Lincoln University, Pa. George Johnson.
RECENT LITERATURE
667
EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY
The Narratives of the Resurrection — A Critical Study. By P. Gardner-
Smith, M.A., Dean and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Lon¬
don : Methuen & Co. Pp. 196, 8 vo.
This volume is vigorously written, and the argument, such as it is, is
well sustained from start to finish. The author owes much to Professor
Kirsopp Lake, and makes the amplest acknowledgment of his indebted¬
ness. True it is that he lays aside certain extravagances to which Dr.
Lake lends himself, but, to draw on the vocabulary of the Higher
Critics, Mr. Gardner-Smith’s The Narratives of the Resurrection and
Dr. Lake’s The Resurrection of Jesus Christ are properly doublets of one
vision.
The material of Mr. Gardner-Smith’s volume is distributed into, In¬
troduction, The Witness of Paul, The Sepulchre, The Appearances, The
Johannine Account, Uncanonical Sources, The Growth of Tradition,
The Facts and their Significance ; but, to the discussion of three ques¬
tions — (1) What, broadly speaking, did the Christian Church of the New
Testament period hold as true concerning the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ? (2) When the evidence, on which the early Christian Church
seems, in this regard, to have relied, is critically tested, how much re¬
mains there of historical fact? (3) How much are we now justified in
professing, as the truth of God, in connection with this Article of faith?
— may the gist of the volume for substance be reduced.
With regard to the first of these questions, we get the impression
that it is the author’s belief that, broadly speaking, the Church of the
New Testament period believed that Jesus, on the third day after He was
crucified and was buried, rose out of His tomb in the same body in which
He had suffered, although, doubtless, that body had experienced a change.
That, of course, is the Evangelical belief to this hour, and it is some
satisfaction to be again, in this way, assured that Evangelicals are now
found in the goodly fellowship of the Apostolic church. The only de¬
duction one would be disposed to make, under this head, is in regards to
what our author says in connection with Paul’s estimate of the manner
in which Jesus appeared to himself on the way to Damascus. The im¬
pression we get in reading the New Testament is tfyat Paul was con¬
vinced that he had with his very eyes seen the glorified body of Jesus.
He never gives us the impression that he regarded the visions that were
vouchsafed him in the temple (Acts xxii. 18), or when he was caught up
even to the third heaven (2 Cor. xii. 2), as being of like evidential and
and apologetic value with the appearing of Jesus to him on the way to
Damascus. The fact, that Paul’s companions (Acts ix. 7) are said to
have seen no man, surely suggest by way of contrast that a being, who
was in the full sense human, not a spirit or ghost, stood before Paul.
That Jesus in person was in the flash of light from heaven visible to
Paul, while He remained invisible to Paul’s companions is in entire
keeping with His manner of making Himself known to His chosen wit¬
nesses after He rose from the dead. The thought with which our author,
following Lake, seems to credit Paul, in the sense that the historical
668
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Jesus was transubstantiated into pure spirit finds no support from the
New Testament.
But it is in his investigation of the second of the two questions into
which, taking our cue from the author, we divide this discussion that we
meet with the greatest disappointment. As in the case of Lake, the effort
is made to produce upon the mind of the reader the conviction that the
first believers had no evidence, of really historical character, that the
tomb of Jesus was found empty on the third day, or that He actually
rose in the body in which He suffered. This conclusion is, with our
author, apparently a foregone one, and the method pursued in the seem¬
ingly careful investigation is, in the judgment of the reviewer, simply
reckless :
(i) So far as the Gospels are concerned, the testimony of Matthew,
and of Luke, and of John, really counts for nothing. Mark, now that the
last twelve verses of his Gospel are lost, has little to tell us of what
Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, the pri¬
mary witnesses for the empty tomb, actually saw or heard. In fact, if
somewhat daring, we throw out the word vy *p0V from Mark xvi. 6, the
sum of it all appears to amount only to this : Three women went early
in the morning to the place where they supposed Jesus to have been
buried. There met them there a young man who sought to assure them
that what they seemed to take as the burying place of Jesus was not His
sepulchre at all. The poor women fell into such a panic that they ran
away in the greatest consternation, and, for a long time, never made
mention to anyone of their having gone out to visit Jesus’ tomb. We are
asked to take that as illustrative of what should henceforth be regarded
as an approach to historical problems with a mind unbiassed by ante¬
cedent assumptions ! To our mind the method pursued by our author
ought rather to be taken as an instance of what Dr. Swete meant by
“the stubborn scepticism that is born of unworthy presuppositions.”
For, to begin with, is it, psychologically speaking, a likely thing that
three women, who had the courage to visit a burying-place at dawn
would have lost their heads in the manner which this theory supposes,
merely because a young man, so far as appears, civilly pointed out to
them that they were mistaken as to the place where Jesus had been laid?
We think not. And, further, we reckoned that the interpretation which
we are now asked to put upon the words of Mark — “neither said they
anything to any man” — in the sense, that for a long time they made no
mention to anyone of their having visited the tomb that morning is less
natural than, say, J. A. Alexander’s paraphrase — “they did not stop to
speak to anyone, but hurried to convey the message committed to them.”
But the excision of Jr/tpOr) (Mk. xvi. 6) for no reason save that it
stands in the way of a foregone conclusion, is, as I have already said,
sheer recklessness. And scarcely deserving of less severe castigation is
the mentality that finds satisfaction in the evaluation that counts the
testimony of Matthew, Luke and John, in the present regard, as prac¬
tically nil. Surely, even if the proof that Matthew made use of Mark
were more compelling than a scholar of Zahn’s calibre allows it to be, it
RECENT LITERATURE
669
would not immediately follow that the author of what has, not without
some ground of reason, been called the most important book in all the
world, has no weight independently of Mark. And what shall we say of
Luke, who professes to have made the most careful examination possible
of all that he recorded before he submitted aught to public gaze, and
whose averments, wherever they could be tested by means of otherwise
ascertained bed-rock facts, have been found worthy of the utmost cre¬
dence? Or, of John, whose sublime Gospel, if not the testimony of an
eye-witness, is morally blurred ?
(2) It is argued by our author that if we start from the simple and
altogether natural story of the young man, who, according to an im¬
aginary Ur-Markus, pointed out to Mary Magdalene and her companions
their failure to identify the true tomb, we can give an easy and natural
account of the legend of the angels and of the empty tomb, as that is met
with in our canonical Gospels. The reply to that is, that the earliest verit¬
able and actual witness to whom in this particular connection it is pos¬
sible for us to appeal is the Apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. xv. and that, in that
very earliest testimony, we have all that is needful, in order to establish
the Evangelical doctrine respecting the resurrection of our Lord, in a
bodily sense, from the dead, so that there is no occasion to speak of de¬
velopment as between the earliest and latest New Testament reports of
this central doctrine of our faith. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 3-1 1) gives it not
only as his own belief, but as the well established belief of the whole
Christian church, as far as he knew it, (a) that Jesus died — which surely
involved the separation of soul and body; (b) that He was buried —
which must surely be understood with a reference to his body; (c) that
He rose (from the dead) — of course in the only sense in which He could
be said to have been dead; (d) that His resurrection took place on the
third day (after He was buried) — an expression that would be meaning¬
less, if all that were meant were merely the survival of his Personality
in spite of death. We have the whole Evangelical doctrine of the resur¬
rection there, from the very first, and, as it was the universal doctrine
then, so John, our latest witness, adds nothing to it, as doctrine.
(3) Our author makes, or tries to make, capital, in the interest of his
own point of view, of supposed discrepancies and disharmonies which
are discoverable in the several accounts of the resurrection of our Lord
wherewith the New Testament supplies us. (a) The Synoptists, it is said,
think of tomb as a cave in a rock, John thinks of a mausoleum. The
ground upon which this idea is ascribed to John seems to be his making
use of the verb atpu (xx. 1) I lift up, in reference to what Mary Magda¬
lene saw when she visited the sepulchre — “she seeth the stone taken away
( -tippivov ) from the sepulchre” — But while “I lift up” is the primary
meaning of ittpw, a good and common secondary meaning of the same
verb is “I carry away.” Thus Homer ( Iliad xvi. 678) says : “Apollo
straightway bore ( ielpas ) Sarpedon out of the darts.” And Mark, with
a similar usage, says (ii. 3) : “And they come, bringing unto him a man
sick of the palsy, borne ( alpPperoy ) of four.” Thus there is no reason to
think of a mausoleum, (b) Matthew's account of how our Lord ap-
67O THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
peared to Mary Magdalene, it is said, is diverse from John’s account.
But it has to be borne in mind that, according to the reading now com¬
monly accepted, in Matt, xxviii, Matthew does not say that it was when
the women were on the way from the tomb to the abode of the disciples
that Jesus met them. For the rest, it suffices to say with Westcott: “The
main difficulties are due to the extreme compression of St. Matthew’s
narrative, in which there is no clear distinction of points of time. The
incidents and the spectators are brought together in a general picture.’’
(c) Matthew, it is said knows nothing of appearances to the Apostles in
Jerusalem, Luke knows nothing of appearances in Galilee. But Matthew,
as B. B. Warfield puts it, differs from the other Synoptists in the greater
richness of Jesus’ own testimony to His Deity which he records. If, then,
Matthew was determined to close his record on the great Trinitarian
oracle (xxviii. 18-20), it was what was most in keeping with his concep¬
tion of Immanuel, and, in view of the extent of his roll, that might de¬
termine his treatment of the post-resurrection appearances of our Lord.
An analagous reason might be given for the method of treatment of this
theme, adopted by Luke. It is in no wise necessary to think that Matthew
was ignorant of the ascension from Olivet, or Luke of the appearances
in Galilee.
How much then are we in our time justified in professing as the truth
of God in regard to this central Article of our faith? On the one hand,
our author reckons that, as the Christian movement could not have origin¬
ated causelessly, so some credence must be given to some at least of the
several appearances of our Lord recorded in the New Testament, al¬
though the statement, that He appeared to five hundred brethren at once,
puts too great a strain on our author’s faith. On the other hand, these
appearances must be construed, thinks our author, in a manner acceptable
to the modern mind, and that excludes the idea of a miraculous resur¬
rection in the body in which our Lord suffered. One would have thought
that the latest doctrines of the nature of matter would, if anything, have
made belief in the bodily resurrection easier than ever before. But, for
Mr. Gardner-Smith as for Dr. Lake, nothing remains but proofs, or
what may be regarded as proofs of the Personal survival of Jesus in spite
of death. Have not Myers and Oliver Lodge helped us (Dr. Lake ex¬
pressly) to accept this much as in accord with psychical science? The
phrase, “survival of Personality” sounds well, but it is not that belief
that gave the impetus to the great movement which we speak of as
Christianity. Indeed, Plato, in his Phaedo, has taught the doctrine of the
survival of Personality more convincingly than our Spiritists have done.
And what an easy thing it will be for the man that comes after Lake and
Gardner-Smith to say plainly, that the Christian faith is based on what,
in the vulgar, are called ghost stories ! For my own part, I shall believe
that the Christian movement is to be accounted for in the manner of Mr.
P. Gardner-Smith when I can believe that it was a dead horse that won
the Derby last year.
It will be seen that, in our judgment, Mr. Gardner-Smith adds very
little to the knowledge of one who has made the acquaintance of Dr.
RECENT LITERATURE
671
Lake’s volume on the Resurrection. Probably the most useful purpose
which Mr. Gardner-Smith’s volume serves is that as against historic
Christianity, it makes the deplorably un-Christian attitude of the Modern
English Churchmen clear as a sunbeam.
Edinburgh. John R. Mackay.
Asianic Elements in Greek Civilisation. The Gifford Lectures in the
University of Edinburgh , 1915-16. By Sir William M. Ramsay,
D.C.L., LL.D. (London, John Murray, 1927.) Price 12s net.
This is a volume of exceptional interest. If, indeed, one comes to the
book expecting to find a validation of natural theology, or, a vindication
of the usual theistic proofs, the kind of discussion that one not unnat¬
urally associates with the Gifford Lectures, one will assuredly be disap¬
pointed. The volume is concerned with just the subjects which its title
indicates — Asianic Elements in Greek Civilisation. That civilisation is
not, of course, to be understood in a sense exclusive of the Greek or
Graeco-Roman religion, and the volume has a good deal that is interest¬
ing to say of the indebtedness of the Greek civilisation, in the religious
sense, to Asia ; and particularly to Anatolia, that is, broadly speaking, to
Asia Minor, or, at least, to what of Asia Minor lies north of the Taurus
Range. The primal deity to the inhabitants of Anatolia would seem to
have been none other than the Earth, variously named the Great Mother,
Cybele, Demeter, with other names besides. But the Great Mother is a
general and comprehensive term ; and thus, not unnaturally, in different
districts of Asia Minor, a perverted religious sense focussed differently
upon different parts of the earth’s productiveness, it might be, the goat,
or it might be, the ox, as the form under which the Great Mother was
thought of. In Ephesus the particular form which stood for this general
object of reverence, the Great Mother, was the Queen Bee. To this cor¬
responds the Greek Artemis and the Roman Diana.
The fact now stated explains one or two phenomena. It explains how,
in ancient sculpture, the image of Artemis is hideous, not human. To be¬
gin with, it was not intended to be human, but to represent the Queen
Bee, with the ovary occupying the greater part of the body. This the
Greeks mistook for the human mammai, and the results were bound to
be, as they actually proved to be, grotesque to a degree. The same fact
explains how certain Anatolians were known of old as Dardanoi. For
dardu is an old Anatolian term for bee, and from dardu comes Dardanoi,
and, from that, the Dardanelles. It is not too much to say that from
Anatolia came almost all the ritual and religious forms of Greece.
The Greek religion cannot, of course, be dissociated from Greek civ¬
ilisation. Yet it will be evident to a reader of the volume before us that
it is not the ancient Greek religion that makes the strongest appeal to
Sir W. M. Ramsay. Rather is it the Greek civilisation, in the narrower
sense of Greek literature and art that makes that appeal. For Hellenism,
in this restricted sense, he has the sincerest admiration — “that fine and
delicate product which survives through, and is teacher of all subsequent
ages.” Sir William is, in fact, mainly concerned in this volume with
672
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
what may be called the natural history of Hellenism, and he is particularly
interested in tracing it to its roots. Those roots he finds in Anatolia, at the
point of contact of east and west, of Asia and Europe, in a word, in what
is the bridge between the two continents, Asia Minor.
Sir William thinks that modern scholarship, in its studies in Hellen¬
ism, has thought too exclusively in terms of the Greek tragedians, and,
so too exclusively of Athens also, “the eye of Greece, Mother of Arts and
Eloquence”; and that it has not sufficiently taken into account the sig¬
nificance, for Greek civilisation, of Ionia, that is, of the western and
southern seaboard of Asia Minor, and of the adjacent islands in the
Aegean Sea. One has only to recall that Ionia can claim, in Epic poetry,
Homer; in Lyric poetry, Sappho; in History, Herodotus; in Medicine,
Hippocrates; in Philosophy, Thales; in Physics, Heraclitus, in order to
be awakened to a consciousness of the significant fact that just in this
region we find Greek literature in that form which is most deserving of
being described as creative. And yet not even Ionia can have all the
credit. The spark was kindled by the contact of non^Greeks, whose home
was in Anatolia proper, and the old Ionians. Speaking out of an ac¬
quaintance with Anatolian data, modern and ancient, that is almost
unique, Sir William, in this volume, shows us that Anatolia holds the
key that solves many problems that perplex, it may be, the lover of
literature, or the historian, or the economist, or the philologist, that has
Greece in the broadest sense for his theme. Thus, we are helped to give
the true answer to such questions, as, Why is it that the Iliad opens with
a plague, and ends with a funeral and a grave? What was, in terms of
Economics, the true cause of the Trojan War? Why should it have lasted
for ten years? Greek Tragedy, comparable to a stream, must, if we are
to understand its natural history, be studied not only in Athens, where
it chiefly flourished, nor yet exclusively in Ionia, which serves as a bond
of union, but in the religious and funeral customs of Anatolia. Even
Plato’s Republic gains in luminosity, if studied in the light of what
Anatolia may be said to have contributed to it.
Sir William M. Ramsay, together with such fellow-princes in scholar¬
ship as the late E. Naville, and Sir Flinders Petrie, and Prof. A. H.
Bryce, and others, are to be regarded as a fine school whom experience
has taught to take the conclusions of the Destructive Higher Critics, in
the fields of both secular and sacred literature, with a grain of salt. Thus,
Sir William, in what concerns secular literature in the volume before us,
ascribes at once the Iliad and the Odyssey to Homer as their author. He
dates the Trojan War somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 b.c. and
is disposed to think that some 400 years intervened between the war and
the epics that have kept educated men interested in that war ever since.
The war is historical. But the Anatolian and Greek imaginative powers
are, as might be expected, responsible for exaggerating, in the course of
centuries, many of its details, and for creating innumerable myths, re¬
specting Gods and Heroes, that are incredible to us, but were quite
credible to the people of that age. ‘Then the great poet gathered up
this floating legend into his own mind, and poured it forth into one of
the greatest poems of the world.”
RECENT LITERATURE
673
But naturally some of us are most interested in the bearing of discus¬
sions of this kind upon the historicity of the Biblical narrative. And here
it falls to be said, that if this handsomely got up volume of 300 large
octavo pages makes its profoundest appeal to classical scholars, the
volume will not be unwelcome to believers in the trustworthiness of the
Biblical record. I note one or two places where this interest and pleasure
will be very great.
(1) Sir William makes Genesis x, particularly in what that chapter
tells of the genealogy, on the one hand, of the sons of Javan, and, on the
other hand, of the house of Ashkenaz, his principal instrument of dis¬
covery, in what concerns the earliest history of Asia Minor. It is not
difficult, broadly speaking, to locate the sons of Javan (the Ionians),
“Kittim and Dodanim, Tarshish and Elishah.” These, with the greatest
probability, are identified with the inhabitants of Crete, of Rhodes (cf.
1 Chron. i, 7), of Tarshish, and of the plain of Alesion which belongs to
Cilicia. This Ionian settlement on the seaboard of Asia Minor, and in the
adjacent islands, came very early in human history in contact with an¬
other and a diverse people, a people for whom in Genesis stands Ashkenaz,
a son of Gomer. Ashkenaz is to be regarded as standing for the earliest
inhabitants of the Anatolian plateau. All the evidence looks that way:
Jeremiah li. 27, according to the only natural interpretation, places them
there. Askania is a geographical name widely spread in Anatolia. Readers
of the Iliad are at home in that region with Askanios and Men Askaenos,
leading Anatolians. Thus Asia Minor would seem in pre-Christian days,
to have been penetrated of, first of all indeed, Ashkenaz, then, of the
Hittites, then, of the Phrygians, then, of the Gauls, then, of the Greeks,
then, of the Romans. But the first contact, in what is of interest to Greek
civilisation, takes place between Ashkenaz and the sons of Javan. That
contact is very early. It gave rise to a great culture, first in Ionia, then,
through an Ionian migration in Greece, and finally, in the civilized world.
But the fundamental document, Genesis x, on which this thought is
based, cannot, putting it at the lowest, be later than the Phrygian In¬
vasion of Anatolia.
(2) One of the most interesting chapters in the volume before us has
for its title Epimenides. Sir William M. Ramsay as an archeologist, who
has made Asia Minor peculiarly his own, has learned the value of dig¬
ging deep, and, on all sides, of any monument that carries any promise of
an inscription, that will throw light on the ancient history and geograph¬
ical boundaries of that region, until, in the end, the immediate object of
study stands out legible in the clear light of day. That method, using a
metaphor, he carries into his studies of personalities, in regard to whom
it might be said that, to the ordinary reader, one foot seems standing in
the historical, and, the other foot to be lost in the clouds of the myth¬
ological. By deep digging, and digging all around, Sir William, in deal¬
ing with such personalities, makes us feel confident that our object of
historical study stands out quite firmly and clearly before us. That is the
impression one gets of Epimenides, after one has read the chapter which
has that interesting personality for its theme. Epimenides, who was a
674
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
native of Crete, and who, in his own person carried elements, some of
which were Anatolian, and others purely Hellenistic, appears to be cor¬
rectly dated about 550 b.c. He was at once a “medicine man,” a philos-
other and a poet. Athenians never quite forgot that he it was that was in¬
strumental in saving their city from a most destructive plague. Even the
altars of the heathen gods, whose presence in Athens impressed Paul, as
we know in a lively manner, were largely there as due to Epimenides’
methods of cleansing. There is reason to think that Paul quotes Epimeni¬
des twice, once in his speech on Mars Hill, and again in his letter to
Titus. How natural all this, if we consider that, in the Athenian mind,
Epimenides was associated with those altars, and that Titus was likely to
know that Epimenides was a Cretan ! The suggestion is that the historic¬
ity of Acts xvii, and of the Epistle to Titus, finds in these data circum¬
stantial corroboration.
We thank Sir William for the fresh grounds he brings forward in
support of the Mosaic authorship of, and Mosaic responsibility for, the
year of Jubilee in Israel; for the fresh reasons he gives for concluding
that Paul did actually visit Spain; and for his explanation of the cir¬
cumstance that, with the remote exception of Pliny, other historians are
silent on the subject of the census of the Roman Empire, inaugurated,
according to Luke ii. 2, in the time of Augustus Caesar; and for the new
light which he throws on the enigmatical inscription on the wall of Bel¬
shazzar’s palace (Daniel v. 25). And all this digged out of Anatolian soil !
Of this volume as a whole, one is disposed to say, as Sir William says
of Bywater’s Heraclitus, it is of the pure gold of learning. Publishers and
printers and proof-readers are to be complimented on producing a volume
that, in all that concerns format and letterpress, is in keeping with the
contents of the volume.
Edinburgh. John R. Mackay.
Israel and Babylon. By W. Lansdell Wardle, M.A., D.D., Tutor in
Hartley College, Manchester; Sometime Scholar of Gonville and
Caius College, Cambridge. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.
8vo., pp. xvi, 343.
The author of this volume believes “it is generally accepted that, even
though we may regard the Bible as a unique book, we can no longer
study it satisfactorily in isolation,” and he holds that of the whole series
of problems which develop out of this “extended view” of the Old Tes¬
tament “none of them is so important as that raised by a comparison of
the religion and traditions of Babylon with those of Israel.” And since
the literature dealing with the subject is so “extensive as to be almost
intimidating” it has been his aim to prepare a volume which will enable
the reader who is not an expert archaeologist to form an intelligent
opinion upon this important question. Dr. Wardle does not claim to be an
expert Assyriologist ; but it is clear that he has sufficient linguistic equip¬
ment to enable him to study many of the problems at first hand, and it is
also clear that he has made use of the standard works upon the subject.
That the discussion is a comprehensive one is indicated by the titles of
the chapters : Introduction ; Palestine, Egypt, Babylonia ; Israel’s An-
RECENT LITERATURE
675
cestors ; Some Features of Babylonian Religion (The Deities; Cult,
Divination, Magic; Religious Poetry; Life after Death; Prophecy?);
The Origins of Hebrew Monotheism; Creation Stories; Paradise and
the Fall; The Ante-Diluvians ; The Deluge; Sabbath and Yahweh; Leg¬
islation ; The Pan-Babylonian Theory ; Retrospect.
The two major problems with which this book is concerned are the in¬
fluence of Babylon upon Israel and the nature of the religion and culture
of Israel itself. We shall briefly discuss these two topics. As regards the
influence of Babylon upon Israel, our author tells us in the introductory
chapter : “It may seem that the conclusions reached in the several dis¬
cussions are so grudging in what they allow to Babylonian influence as
to suggest that the writer is prejudiced against the admission of such in¬
fluence at all” (p. 8). Consequently he takes occasion to inform the
reader that “he began his studies with the general impression that the
extent of dependence was greater than a closer scrutiny of the evidence
leads him now to suppose.” That this closer scrutiny of the evidence has
been conducted in a careful and scholarly way will be abundantly evident
to the reader, who will be impressed many times by the thorough and
impartial way with' which Dr. Wardle presents the relevant data, and
because of this the conclusions reached are of especial interest. Thus our
author tells us with regard to the religious poetry of the Babylonians :
"In its form it reaches great heights of beauty, and not infrequently ap¬
proaches very closely the -poetry of the Old Testament. But, while we
gladly recognize the evidence that in Babylonia there were yearning souls
stretching out faltering hands to God, we cannot regard these penitential
psalms as being on the same level with the hymns of the Hebrew temple.
Over the best of them hangs the obscuring cloud of polytheism. They
may at times equal the Hebrew psalms in their expression of the poig¬
nant sorrows of humanity. But they lack that note of supreme confidence
in a righteous and all-powerful God to which the Old Testament Psalmist
will rise even from the depths of his despair. And above all we miss in
them the bracing ethical atmosphere in which the poets of the Old
Testament lived and loved and had their being. . . . Therefore, so far
from regarding, with some enthusiastic admirers, the Babylonian psalms
as worthy to stand beside those of the Bible, we cannot see that in this
respect the Old Testament is in any important sense a debtor to Baby¬
lonia” (pp. 93 f.).
Dr. Wardle is of the opinion that “such ‘latent monotheism’ as we find
in Egypt or Babylon is quite different from the Old Testament monothe¬
ism” (p. 139). Regarding the Babylonian creation stories he declares:
“On the whole the evidence seems to warrant the conclusion that enuma
elish was known to the authors of the early chapters of Genesis, but that
their position is not so much one of dependence upon as of revulsion
from it” (p. 166). His conclusion with regard to the Deluge is that “even
the very striking coincidences between the Biblical and the Babylonian
records of the deluge fall short of demonstrating that the former bor¬
rowed from the latter” (p. 234). He holds that “at present no evidence
has been produced to show that the Babylonians had any real equivalent
of the Hebrew Sabbath” (p. 247). He also tells us that “even if it be
true that the name Yahweh was known to the Hebrews in pre-Mosaic
times, the great leader certainly filled the name with a new content for
676
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
his people. There is not the least reason to suppose that the name came to
Israel from Babylon” (p. 251). While believing that Canaanite laws “may
certainly have been influenced” by the Babylonian codes, and that in this
way the Code of Hammurabi may have exercised an indirect influence
upon the Book of the Covenant, our author thinks that “the evidence
falls far short of demonstrating any direct dependence” of the one upon
the other (p. 288). He holds with Cook “that those who would derive
Israel’s ethical conceptions from Babylon or Egypt are making ‘an as¬
sumption which is entirely unreasonable and without support’ ” (p. 301).
The general conclusion reached by Dr. Wardle is that while “we are
bound to admit that there are good grounds for supposing that the
culture of Israel may have been influenced by Babylon, both directly,
and also indirectly through the older inhabitants of Canaan” (p. 331), it
is easy to exaggerate the extent of this influence on Israel’s religious
traditions, and he rejects the view that the distinctive features of the re¬
ligion of Israel have been derived from Babylon. In view of the pains¬
taking and judicious handling of the intricate subjects which he dis¬
cusses, these conclusions will be gratifying to those who hold to the
distinctive character of the religion of Israel.
Turning now to the second and more fundamental question of the
nature of the religion of Israel, we observe that Dr. Wardle accepts,
though with some exceptions and reservations, the conclusions of the at
present dominant school of Old Testament criticism. That this is the
case is indicated at the outset by the dedication of the volume to Pro¬
fessor Arthur S. Peake, and it is especially apparent in the chapters
which deal particularly with Israel. Thus, in discussing the origins of
Hebrew monotheism our author assures us that the “traditional solution”
that this great truth was revealed to Adam and Eve and that the subse¬
quent ages of darkness are to be regarded as “times of degradation and
corruption” cannot be accepted: “Our fuller understanding of the ways
in which the Old Testament came into being, and of the history of man¬
kind, makes it impossible for us to accept this simple solution” (p. 107).
While prepared to maintain that “Abraham was an historic person, and
that the story of the migration from Ur of the Chaldees by way of
Harran to Canaan rests upon a sound tradition” (p. 40) we find him
accepting the dictum of Causse “'Religious individualism was the final
stage of evolution towards universalist monotheism” (p. no). Since he
accepts the view that it was Jeremiah who developed the conception that
“religion is a matter for the individual” it would seem to follow that the
marked individualism of the patriarchal narratives of Genesis cannot be
regarded by Dr. Wardle as forming a part of that “sound tradition” to
which we have just referred. While disposed to be somewhat critical of
what may be called “the orthodox critical view” that the tradition which
makes the patriarchs monotheists is “untrue to historic probabilities,”
Dr. Wardle’s scepticism, if we may call it such, is apparently not due to
willingness on his part to accept the express statements of the Old Testa¬
ment narratives as true, but because he feels that “the accepted [critical]
view took its shape under the dominating influence of the doctrine of
evolution, at a time when the tendency was to think of evolution as
RECENT LITERATURE
6 77
taking place almost exclusively by means of small variations” (by which
he of course means Darwinism) ; and he goes on to say, “Since then it
has been recognized that sudden springs, and also retrogressions, have
played a much more prominent part in the scheme of evolution than had
been allotted them by the earlier theorists” (pp. 112 f.). The extent to
which Dr. Wardle’s view of the Old Testament is dominated by the crit¬
ical-evolutionary theory is indicated by such a statement as the following:
“Yet it may be an exaggeration to speak of Elijah as a monotheist in the
full sense of the word” (p. 114). At the same time we note that Dr.
Wardle considers it probable that “the real source of Hebrew monothe¬
ism” (p. 1 16) is to be found in the religious experience of Moses, and
that it is not an impossible hypothesis that Moses may have prohibited
the use of images. Other examples might be quoted, but in view of the
length to which this review has already attained, the examples already
given will suffice to show that the author may be described as a cautious
and conservative “higher critic.”
While the markedly conservative conclusions of Dr. Wardle with
regard to the influence of Babylon upon Israel are in one respect particu¬
larly interesting because of his acceptance of a theory with regard to the
origin and development of the religion of Israel which would dispose
him to be hospitable toward any indication of borrowing, we cannot
close this review without expressing our regret that the scholarly author
of this volume has not shown the same caution with regard to the higher
critical reconstruction of the Old Testament and the evolutionary theory
which lies back of it, as we observe in his study of Babylonian influence.
Were he to do so, we believe that he would reach the conclusion that the
Wellhausen hypothesis is much more vulnerable than he is apparently
aware.
One of the clearest indications of this is found in the chapter on the
Ante-Diluvians. There we find that Dr. Wardle takes the three lists
given in Gen. v., iv. 17-22 and iv. 25 f., respectively, and lists them as (A),
(B), and (C). (A) he assigns to P, (B) to J, (C) to “a different stratum
within J,” and he tells us that “the interrelations of (A), (B), and (C)
provide a most delicate and intricate problem, into which we can hardly
enter here” (pp. 193 f.). He continues, “It will be observed that the six
single names of (B) are essentially the same as the names from the
fourth to the ninth of (A), with slight variation of order.” With a view
to testing the correctness of this statement which Dr. Wardle makes
with considerable positiveness and which is essential to the theory widely
current in critical circles that the two lists were originally the same, we
shall put (A) and (B) side by side giving the Hebrew form wherever
there is a variation.
A B
Adam
Seth
Enosh
Kenan (pip) Cain (pp)
Mahalaleel Enoch (“pjn)
678
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
A
B
Jared (-n’t)
Enoch (“jun)
Methuselah
Lamech (^0^)
Noah
I rad (TVJ?)
Mehujael (^WinD)
Methushael
Lamech (*p^)
Jabal; Jubal; Tubal-Cain
Comparing these lists we fail to see how so careful a scholar as Dr.
Wardle can say that “the six single names of (B)” are “essentially the
same” as “the fourth to ninth in (A).” It is obvious that two of the
names (Enoch and Lamech) are not merely essentially but identically the
same (this does not prove of course that they may not be homonyms of
diverse origin and meaning). But of the rest we cannot see how any
Semitic scholar, unless he has a theory to prove, can seriously maintain
that any of them are essentially the same. True Jared and Irad look a
good deal alike in their English form. But the latter has an ‘Ayin, a
strong guttural, at the beginning. Is that not essential? Mahalaleel and
Mehujael have three consonants alike; but the others are different, and
of the latter one word has where the other has n- Is this difference
not essential? Methuselah and Methushael are more alike, but is the
difference between shelah and sha’el not essential ? Is the fact that Kenan
has the ending (?) -an while Cain does not, clearly immaterial? Are all
these differences so minor that the “essential” identity of these six names
can be simply assumed as the basis for further discussion? Dr. Wardle’s
careful discussions of Hebrews and Habiri (pp. 41 f.), of tiamat and
“the deep” ( Q)nn » Gen. i. 2; pp. 148 f.), would lead us to expect that
he would be more cautious about accepting a critical theory which, how¬
ever popular it may be, is open to very serious objections. Dr. Wardle is
of course in very good “critical” company when he asserts the essential
identity of these lists. We even find Dr. Barton making the astonishing
statement that “The close parallelism of these two lists of names is really
greater than it appears to the English reader to be” ; and Barton assures
us that “Cain, which means ‘artificer,’ is in Hebrew the same word as
Kenan, lacking only one formative letter at the end,” that “Irad and
Jared differ in Hebrew only by the wearing away of one consonant,” etc.
( Archaeology and the Bible, p. 269). Such assertions are unworthy of a
careful scholar. For it is to be remembered that in asserting the identity
of these lists the critics are not endeavoring to vindicate a claim made
by the document itself, but rather to establish a theory which the docu¬
ment itself flatly contradicts, as if for example the fact that the Cain of
the one list is represented as the first born of Adam while the Kenan of
the other list is stated to be the grandson of Adam’s third son, Seth,
were a matter of no moment whatsoever.
Apparently the reason that Dr. Wardle is not more critical of the
theories of the critics is to be found in the fact that, as indicated above,
he accepts the theory of evolution which has been one of the most im¬
portant factors, if not the most important, in producing them. This ap¬
pears quite clearly in his closing chapter. In summing up he points out
RECENT LITERATURE
679
that in the Babylonian religion we do not find “the ethical sense of sin”
which is so characteristic of the Old Testament, that, “the magical ele¬
ment” which is so prominent in Babylon was ‘‘utterly abhorrent” to the
writers of the Old Testament, and that “the claims made for the exist¬
ence in Babylonia of anything comparable with Hebrew prophecy have
no sound basis, and even in its highest developments the religion of
Babylonia falls far below the level of Old Testament prophecy,” and he
concludes the paragraph with these words : “Above all, our investigation
into the origins of Hebrew monotheism seemed to discredit the asser¬
tion that they are to be found in Egypt or Babylonia, and to show that
this great truth was developed among the Hebrew people” (p. 332).
The word “developed” in the sentence last quoted is significant. If the
religion of Israel was a development, and if this development was due, as
the critics are fond of asserting, to the genius of the Jew for religion,
then the comparative study of religions and especially of Semitic relig¬
ions, is very important. But if the express statements of the Old Testa¬
ment are to be trusted, if the religion of Israel is a revelation made to an
insignificant people (Deut. vii. 7, ix. 4 f.), if it be true that God called
Abraham and made a covenant with him, that He renewed the covenant
to his seed at Sinai, and that He spake to their descendants through His
servants the prophets, then the word development is obviously inadequate
to express the real genius of the religion of Israel. It may be true to say
that “From all comparison the Old Testament emerges with an enhanced
splendor” (p. 9). It will do this if its own testimony is allowed to be
■heard. But it is equally true that the more fully its testimony is accepted,
the more clear will be its unique superiority. The closing paragraph of
Dr. YVardle’s introduction reads as follows, and he ends it with a quo¬
tation from Gunkel : “Nor, indeed, if it should be proved that the eternal
light which streams from the pages of the Old Testament has been in¬
creased by rays reflected from Babylonia or Egypt should we feel in the
least disconcerted. We should rejoice rather to know that the knowledge
of God was wider spread than we had hitherto supposed. For we believe
that God is Light, and that all the light which shines from human souls is
but a reflection of the divine light. ‘If we really believe in God, who
manifests Himself in history, we must not prescribe to the Almighty
how the events must happen in which we are to find Him ; we have only
humbly to kiss the prints of His feet and reverence His government in
history’.” Beautifully put ! But, we ask, who is it who prescribes to the
Almighty how events must happen, or, since we are dealing with Old
Testament history, how events must have happened, the higher critic
who, like Gunkel, seeks in the interest of a theory of evolution more or
less naturalistically conceived, to reconstruct Old Testament history and
derive much of Israel’s culture and religion from Babylon, or the ortho¬
dox believer who accepts the statements of God’s own Word with regard
to “His government in history” and especially with regard to His unique
dealings with a peculiar people? The sentiment contained in the quota¬
tion from Gunkel is very admirable, but it must be remembered that it
comes from one who has made it perfectly plain that he is not prepared
68o
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
to accept the statements of the Old Testament regarding Biblical history
as true.
As a study of the influence of Babylon upon Israel we feel that this
book can be commended as a clear, scholarly and reliable presentation of
the facts. We regret that we cannot commend it as reliable in its presen¬
tation of the religion of Israel itself. And we close this rather extended
review by repeating our wish that the scholarly author would subject the
conclusions of the critics of the Old Testament to the same careful
scrutiny to which he has subjected the views of those who have sought
to find the secret of its power in Babylonia.
Princeton. Oswald T. Allis.
The Sacred Scriptures, Concordant Version. Pocket Edition. Concordant
Publishing Concern. Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A.
This “pocket edition” of the New Testament is a condensed edition of
a version of the New Testament which is described as “conforming to the
basic laws of language, in that, as far as possible, each English expression
constantly represents its closest Greek equivalent, and each Greek word is
translated by an exclusive English rendering.” The unabridged edition
contains a quite extensive apparatus consisting of “a Restored Greek
Text, with various readings, a uniform sub-linear, based on a standard
English equivalent for each Greek element, and an idiomatic Emphasized
English Version (with notes), which are linked together and correlated
for the English reader by means of an English Concordance and Lexicon
and a complementary list of the Greek Elements, with a Grammar.”
As a specimen of the Concordant Version which will indicate to the
reader some of its salient characteristics, we shall quote the familiar
passage John xxi. 15-19, according to this version :
When, then, they lunch, Jesus is saying to Simon Peter, “Simon, of
John, are you loving Me more than these?” He is saying to Him, “Yes,
Lord. Thou art aware that I am fond of Thee.” He is saying to him,
“Be grazing My lambkins.” Again, a second time He is saying to him,
“Simon of John, are you loving Me?” He is saying to Him, “Yes, Lord,
Thou art aware that I am fond of Thee.” He is saying to him, “Be
shepherding My sheep.” He is saying to him the third time, “Simon of
John, are you fond of Me?” Peter was sorry that He said to him a third
time “Are you fond of Me?” and he is saying to Him, “Lord, Thou art
aware of all things. Thou knowest that I am fond of Thee.” And Jesus
is saying to him, “Be grazing my little sheep. Verily, verily, I am saying
to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked whither
you would, yet whenever you may be decrepit you will stretch out your
hands, and another shall be girding you and carrying you whither you
would not.” Now this He said signifying by what death he will be
glorifying God. And, saying this, He is saying to him, “Be following
Me!”
We note in the first place that the version is so painfully literal that
it is not good English. An adequate translation from the Greek should
be just as good English as the Greek is good Greek. The distinction be¬
tween a literal and an idiomatic translation can be a very mistaken one.
RECENT LITERATURE
68 1
A literal translation may do such violence to English idiom as to be mis¬
leading, while an idiomatic rendering should give as exact an equivalent
of the original as possible. Syntax is no less important than etymology in
the making of a reliable translation. Thus, we cannot see that anything
is gained by the rendering : “Now this He said signifying by what death
he will be glorifying God,” since the future indicative in Greek may
describe what “may or should take place (ethical possibility).” To ren¬
der future indicative by future indicative in this passage is literal in a
sense, but it is not grammatical.
In fact, one of the most noticeable things about this translation is the
rendering of the verb. We fail to see why the English present is not
sufficiently accurate as a rendering of the Greek present: why “Jesus
saith” (or says) must be changed to “Jesus is saying.” Still, since the
Greek present describes “action going on in present time,” we cannot
call the rendering wrong, though it seems to us pedantic. But what
shall we say of the “when, then, they lunch,” of vs. 15? Certainly the
aorist ( IpUm/aav ) refers to past time, and is equivalent to a pluperfect
(cf. the “So when they had dined” of the AV) yet here it is treated as
a present (being followed by the words, “Jesus is saying”). We might
regard this as a slip. But the aorist is rendered as present in other pas¬
sages (e.g., John ix. 26: “They said, then, to him, again, ‘What does he
do to you? How does he open your eyes?’”). This rendering is clearly
unwarranted.
Since it is claimed that in this version as far as possible “each Greek
word is translated by an exclusive English rendering,” the rendering of
</>i\civ in vss. 15-17 is noteworthy. Aside altogether from the question
whether “to be fond of” is an adequate rendering (It does not do jus¬
tice to that love of “personal heart emotion” [Meyer] of “personal at¬
tachment” [Westcott] which seems clearly present in it [cf. B. B. War-
field, “The Terminology of Love in the New Testament,” in this Review,
Vol. xvi, p. 196]) it would seem that it ought to be obvious to even the
most ardent advocate of the “single word” method that “For the Father
is fond of the Son and is showing Him all that He is doing,” is a simply
preposterous rendering for John v. 20. Since this version elsewhere
recognizes the impossibility of always rendering <t>i\eiv by the same word
(when used by Judas, the familiar rendering “kiss” is retained), it seems
clear to us that the author or authors of this version should either have
used more pains in the choice of the English equivalent or else have held
less rigidly to their theory.
Recognizing the sincere attempt which is made in this version to
enable the English reader to get as close as possible to the original Greek
of the New Testament, we are loathe to criticize it too severely. It
seems to us to illustrate very clearly the following facts : first, that there
is no royal road to knowledge, that the best way to master the Greek
New Testament is to study New Testament Greek; second, that the
direct way of approach is likely to be the easiest in the end : we believe
it would be easier for most men to get a reading knowledge of Greek,
than to master the intricacies of the Concordant Version, even were it
682
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
fully reliable which we do not believe it to be ; and finally, that an ex¬
amination of the modern versions, the number of which is rapidly in¬
creasing, should lead the discriminating reader to appreciate more fully
the admirable qualities of the Authorized and Revised Versions.
Princeton. Oswald T. Allis.
SYSTEMATICAL THEOLOGY
What It Means to Be Christian. By Charles O’Neale Martindale,
B.A., L.I., M.D., Ph.D., D.D., Minister of Presbyterian Church in
U.S. Chicago : Neely Printing Co. 1927. Pp. 136.
The author has written a useful and Scriptural little book which at¬
tempts to answer in a popular way the question which forms the title of
the volume. He bases his views on the Bible considered as the Word of
God, and makes no attempt to dilute Christianity to make it tasteful to
the so-called modern mind.
Anything, he tells us, that will heighten and deepen the significance
of the term “Christian” is worth while because “its use ranges all the
way from a very earnest matter to a very diluted amiability.”
The question what a Christian is, however, is answered in the third
chapter because the author realizes that trust in Christ involves some
knowledge of who Christ is and what He has done for the salvation of
sinners. Accordingly chapter one seeks to answer the question “Who and
What Christ Is,” and chapter two shows how Christ reveals God.
Christ, according to the teaching of the Bible, and we agree with Dr.
Martindale, is truly God and completely man in two Natures and one
Person. He died as the sinner’s substitute bearing the guilt and penalty
of sin and satisfying divine justice. He revealed God in His Incarnation,
teaching, life, and death. A Christian, then, is a convicted sinner who
trusts Christ as his Divine Saviour from sin. A man becomes a Chris¬
tian, as we are told in chapter four, by faith and repentance, by accept¬
ing Christ as He is offered in the Gospel, and by repenting of sin. This
he does under the influence of the Holy Spirit given by Christ.
All this, we believe, is the Scriptural answer to the questions “Who
and What Christ Is,” “How Christ Reveals God,” “What a Christian Is”
and “How to Become a Christian.”
In six succeeding chapters the author answers the questions why one
should be a Christian, when to become a Christian, how to know that
one is a Christian, why a Christian should unite with a Church, and dis¬
cusses briefly the topics “Young People and Christianity” and “Helping
Others to Become Christian.”
We think that the book is in the main a correct representation of the
Biblical teaching. Naturally when so many Biblical passages are cited
and expounded, we would differ with the author in some details of his
exegesis, and we do not find as clear a statement as we could wish as
to the relation between Regeneration and Faith. We would have wished
to see the constantly evangelical features of Christian belief — by which
we mean the Calvinistic features — more distinctly stated and emphasized.
Princeton. C. W. Hodge.
RECENT LITERATURE
683
Select Treatises of S. Bernard of Clairuaux : De diligendo Deo, Edited by
Watkins W. Williams; and De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae,
edited by Barton V. R. Miixis. Cambridge, at the University Press.
1926. Pp. xxiv, 169.
This addition to the Cambridge Patristic Texts will be of service to all
who know by experience the rich treasure of thought and expression to
be obtained by diligent and sympathetic study of the mediaeval mystics.
We have in this volume the two treatises by St. Bernard which scholars
agree contain the beginning of the mysticism, which in the sermons on
the Song of Songs composed shortly before his death in 1 1 53 found
their complete expression. Here we find the thoughts which we sing in
the three hymns: “O Jesus, King most wonderful,” “Jesus, Thou joy of
loving hearts,” and “Jesus, the very thought of Thee.” The editors have
spared no pains in the effort to secure a correct text. In this respect they
think that they have surpassed the work of Mabillon, who edited the
text at Paris in 1690, since they had the good fortune to discover two
manuscripts in the town library of Troyes which Mabillon apparently
had overlooked. At the foot of each page are printed explanatory notes
that give all the help needed for the understanding of any unusual Latin
terms that occur, the grammatical structure, and the difficult thoughts.
The careful perusal of a work like this will, we are convinced, yield far
more return than the careless reading of so much of the superficial re¬
ligious books that pour from the press so abundantly in these days to be
lightly skimmed — and deservedly forgotten.
Lincoln University, Pa. George Johnson.
The Theology of Personality. By William Samuel Bishop, D.D., author
of “The Development of Trinitarian Doctrine” and “Spirit and Per¬
sonality.” $1.50.
The author writes from the standpoint of Anglican Christianity, with
some evident leanings toward Anglican Catholicism. However the really
important parts of the book concern the doctrines of the Trinity and the
Person of Christ. On these subjects he is no amateur, having thorough
familiarity with, and profound knowledge of the theological positions
involved. Not all the positions taken will command assent, not all are
entirely clear and some are quite unscriptural.
The discussion of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the risen Christ is
one of these. At times Son and Spirit are so identified as to suggest a
dual Godhead rather than a Trinity. But from other expressions we are
persuaded that the Author is a trinitarian. More care in distinguishing
Spirit from spirit, and person from influence would be desirable.
The discussion of the “filioque” controversy, historically considered, is
happy and informing. But Dr. Bishop raises the question how the incarna¬
tion affected the procession of the Spirit from the Son, and takes the posi¬
tion “that if as Spirit of God he is Divine, as Spirit of Jesus he must no
less be acknowledged as human, that in the Person of the Risen and glori¬
fied Lord the Divine Spirit has now become humanized.” Since in the in¬
carnation Christ assumed a human nature, and since there is unity in the
Godhead, the author asserts that “if the Holy Ghost has literally assumed
684
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
into personal union with himself the ‘mind’ or human spirit of the Risen
and glorified Christ, then it follows that the Holy Spirit must be recog¬
nized as now possessing a human consciousness, the very consciousness
of the glorified Jesus Himself.” “The Holy Spirit has appropriated that
perfected human spirit of Christ so as to make it personally one with
Himself,” and “it is under His human aspect, as the created spirit of Jesus
that the Holy Ghost is revealed and communicated to us as our own very
Life, in order that sharing this Life we might be in Christ and Christ in
us.” Prior to the incarnation there was a Trinity of pure Godhead; since
the glorification of the Theanthropos the Father is a Divine Person, the
Son and Spirit are Divine-human Persons. “While the personalities of
God and men are never confused, while the human remains ever human
and the Divine ever Divine, yet men are taken into the very life of God
Himself through being partakers of the Divine-human Spirit of Jesus
Christ. A triplicity, which is in a sense an extension of the original and
eternal Trinity, may here be recognized. The Holy Spirit as Christ’s
Spirit is recognized as the personal Principle of this Divine-human life.”
As to this we remark: I. The contention is entirely too speculative;
suppositions are not facts. 2. The language is obscure. No definite mean¬
ing is given to “the Life of God.” 3. “Humanizing the Holy Spirit” seems
to add some attribute to the Trinity. 4. We deprecate the clause, “an
extension of the original and eternal Trinity.” 5. Efforts to humanize
God and deify man are definitely anti-theistic. 6. Because procession is
from the Son, it does not follow that the human nature of the Thean¬
thropos is incorporated into the Holy Spirit. There is no sense in which
we can conceive of any substantial incorporation, nor any reason for such
a hypostatical union as is found in the two natures of the incarnate Son.
Old Sabellianism had a doctrine of absorption now quite ignored or
forgotten.
A subject which is admirably and satisfactorily discussed is the doc¬
trine of the Person of Christ. The modernistic objection to Chalcedonian
Christology, i.e. the two natures in one person, is traced to the modern
tendency to identify creature and Creator, Immanence pushed to Panthe¬
ism. The author is loyal to Chalcedon and able to give a reason for the
faith that is in him. The topic is treated with ability and learning.
A lengthy discussion ensues on the terms ousia, hypostasis, prosopon
&c. with rather uncertain results even with the help of Harnack. It is
doubtful if the usage of the Greek fathers was uniform, or what growth
of meaning took place in the connotation of succeeding centuries. We
think a sound metaphysic would hold that substance is that in which
attributes inhere, and exists in two known aspects, matter and spirit;
that substance and attributes are inseparable except in thought and
definition : that person consists in substance with certain attributes, such
as intelligence, feeling, will; that substances are differentiated by their
attributes; that attributes are primary and essential, or secondary and
accidental. Clear distinctions as to substance, attribute and function might
save confusion in the discussion of the Godhead and the hypostatical
union of two natures in the person of Christ.
RECENT LITERATURE
685
Whether hypistasis connotes substance or subsistence is a fine point in
philology, perhaps usage was not uniform and discriminating, but our
preference lies with the former, the Latin equivalent being substantia,
though perhaps used in both senses. Further we think the term ‘essence’
properly covers both substance and attributes though often used to con¬
note subsistence or personality.
This book is a tribute to the ability and industry of its author, who
shows himself at home in all this range of discussion, and thoroughly
familiar with the terms and bearings of patristic debate. It is well worth
careful reading however much we may differ on certain assumptions.
Philadelphia, Pa. David S. Clark.
PRACTICAL THEOLOGY
George C. Stebbins : Reminiscences and Gospel Hymn Stories. With an
Introduction by Charles H. Gabriel. By George C. Stebbins. Illus¬
trated. East Northfield, Mass. Record of Christian Work. New York:
George H. Doran Company. 1924. Pp. 327. Price $3.00 net.
There are few books that would be more welcome to lovers of the fine
old gospel songs than these reminiscences and stories. So far as we know,
Mr. Stebbins never lowered the standard of first class composition. He
never wrote trash or near-trash. He never descended to the bizarre. To
him irreverent jazz has no place in Christian praise. All his melodies are
the expression of a high refinement combined with beautiful simplicity.
He wrote music somewhat as Holmes and Whittier wrote poetry, always
aspiring to the charm of an expression that has dignity without artificial¬
ity, producing deep impressions that abide through the years. Ordinarily,
a good hymn must first be a good poem. We think that Mr. Stebbins has
truly immortalized some fine poems by the exquisite melodies which he
has set them to. Can words and music be more delicately blended than in
the solemn, thoughtful Evening Prayer ? And when you read Green Hill,
singing his tune with its rich refrain :
“Oh ! dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him too ;
And trust in His redeeming blood
And try His works to do,”
it seems indeed as if the love of God in Christ had “broken every barrier
down,” and done it through the cross of Calvary.
One of the unanswerable testimonies of Christian Missions is the poem
In The Secret Of His Presence, by Miss Goreh, a converted Hindoo. But
could there be anything sweeter and more adapted to bringing the be¬
liever into that Presence than Mr. Stebbins’ rapturous setting? Nor can
one miss the appealing notes of There Is Never a Day So Dreary, The
Shepherd True, and Jesus Is Calling. The soul coming out of its “bond¬
age, sorrow and night” to its Saviour could scarcely be more sweetly
melodied than in Jesus, I Come; while the music set to Fanny Crosby’s
Saved by Grace is so beautiful that it arrests attention wherever sung.
The first sixteen chapters (pp. 27-182) are biographical, the remainder
686
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
of the book (pp. 183-327) containing reminiscences of celebrated writers
and singers of gospel songs. This second section lists a splendid array of
composers whose gospel songs left a deep impression over a generation
ago. Dr. George F. Root, P. P. Bliss, Ira D. Sankey, Philip Phillips,
James McGranahan, Robert Lowry, Dr. William H. Doane, Dr. Daniel B.
Towner, Hubert P. Main, H. R. Palmer, Edwin O. Excell, Major D. W.
Whittle, Fanny Crosby Van Alstyne, John R. Sweney, William J. Kirk¬
patrick, down to Charles H. Gabriel, Charles M. Alexander, and Homer
A. Rodeheaver. There is also a touching reference to the author’s faithful
wife (pp. 304-305).
Naturally, much of the book dwells on Mr. Dwight L. Moody, with
whom Mr. Stebbins was so long and so intimately associated. His picture
of Mr. Moody is both authoritative and attractive. The theology which
lay behind Mr. Moody’s preaching was very evidently that of evangelical
Reformed Protestantism. Every evangelist, as every preacher and teacher,
has some theological background. Perhaps that of Mr. Moody is well
summed up in the “Three R’s” (p. 318) which someone wrote in one of
his Bibles:
“Ruin by the Fall,
Redemption by the Blood,
Regeneration by the Spirit.”
In 1912 Mr. Stebbins published a collection of his compositions,
Favorite Sacred Songs (The Biglow and Main Co., Chicago and New
York). It is a worthwhile booklet. Now comes this Autobiography with
its fine recollections of voices now still yet never to be forgotten. The
stately church hymn will always have first place in the house of wor¬
ship. It has no substitute. It breathes truths which no other form of writ¬
ing can so well express. But alongside of it, the simple gospel songs, such
as those written and sung in the great evangelistic mission of Mr. Moody
and his successors will not be easily discarded from the better thoughts
of Christian people. Of these Longfellow’s lines are true:
“Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.”
By their warmth and beauty, by their artless simplicity, and by their
direct appeal to the soul in need of atonement, these songs were very def¬
initely used by the Spirit of God, and they never failed to bless. The
Church should not lose them. We shall do well to sing them over again in
our own time, whatever be our modern evangelistic approach. To the hymns
of George Coles Stebbins the Christian Church today is under lasting
obligation. That obligation it can best fulfill by continuing to sing them
and to propagate the evangelical truths which they so beautifully express.
Lancaster, Ohio. Benjamin F. Paist.
Modern Religious Verse and Prose. An Anthology. By Fred Merrifield,
Assistant Professor of New Testament History and Interpretation in
the University of Chicago. New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1925.
Pp. xiv, 471. Price $3.50.
RECENT LITERATURE
687
This book contains about four hundred poems and prose passages by
one hundred authors. They are arranged in nine groups as follows : The
Irrepressible Yearning after God; The Upward Urge of Life; God — the
Infinite Life of the Universe; The Divine Possibilities of Man; Jesus
in Every-Day Life; Service and World-Brotherhood; Co-operation with
God; The Spirit of True Worship; and The Eternal Value and Continu¬
ity of Life. Each of these main groups is divided into sub-groups
at the close of which are aptly worded notes explaining the sentiment of
each of the poems. The standpoint of the compiler is expressed in the
Foreword as follows: “This book of verse and prose is an offering laid
upon the altar of our dreams. Running through its pages one may feel
the heart-throbs of millions of desperate, longing souls seeking light.”
No poet of note in the last hundred years is left unrepresented, although,
as the title indicates, most prominence is given to recent writers. The net
result is an extraordinarily rich and varied anthology, from which one
may learn the range of the religious imagination and emotion of our
times. Professor Merrifield has chosen the extracts to exemplify the
thoughts which he has expressed in the titles of the nine divisions, but it
is permissible to doubt whether in every case the poem voices the views
of the moderns as explicitly as the notes would lead us to expect. After
all what is the function of religious lyricism ? Is it to teach us the monot¬
onous iterations of a theology that prides itself upon being always “new,”
or is it to give forth the music of the heart that is seeking for God? It
should be noted that this anthology is not called “Modern Christian” but
“Modern Religious Verse and Prose.” The former title would be a mis¬
nomer. For while the anthology contains many of our most cherished
treasures of Christian literature, there are other selections to which the
name Christian would be clearly inapplicable.
Lincoln University, Pa. George Johnson.
Chinese Altars to the Unknown God, An Account of the Religions of
China and the Reactions to them of Christian Missions. By John C.
De Korne, Missionary in China of the Zeeland Classis of the Chris¬
tian Reformed Church in America. Grand Rapids, Mich. Crown 8vo.
Pp. xiii, 139.
This attractive book, well illustrated and bound in leather, contains a
series of lectures delivered in Grand Rapids, Mich., to the students of
Calvin College and Theological Seminary. The subject matter is divided
into twenty-eight short chapters; the first three being introductory, the
next fourteen discussing the religions of China, and the last eleven
chapters giving what the author conceives to be the Christian approach
to the mind and heart of China. These chapters are followed by a list of
the books referred to in the lectures, and by an index of subjects. The
author is one of the younger China missionaries, an esteemed representa¬
tive of the Christian Reformed Church, working in the province of
Kiangsu north of the Yangtze River, and is to be congratulated on the
interesting, and in the main discriminating, presentation of the religions
of China which he has given. We rejoice that in these days when there
is so much loose thinking and compromise, he rings true on the subject
688
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
of the Gospel of Christ as the only hope of the heathen world. The author
gives full credit to Chinese religions for any good found in them, but
sometimes allows his generosity to run away with his sober judgment,
as when he speaks favorably of a special Mission to Buddhists in Nan¬
king (p. hi) where incense, acolytes, bells, and Buddhist symbolism are
used, which the majority of conservative missionaries and Chinese
Christians are forced to consider a ruinous compromise. It is difficult to
see where incense burnt before the picture of the Saviour differs from
other forms of idolatry. Regarding ancestral worship, it ought to be
mentioned that the chief motive, as the Chinese themselves acknowledge,
is fear — fear that if the worship is not performed, the dead ancestors
will bring down calamity upon the family. As to non-Christian religions
is it not putting the matter too mildly to say that they have “limitations” ?
As systems — and we must judge them as systems, not by isolated features
which we approve, — are they not radically false and destructive? They
lead the soul away from God, and make every man his own Saviour. The
Apostle Paul evidently took this view — he said the worship of the Gen¬
tiles was a sacrifice to devils, and not to God. It was not a “quest after
God,” as advocates of Liberalism are so fond of representing (i Cor.
x. 20).
We are glad to note that the author calls attention to the fact that later
or Mahayana Buddhism is indebted to Christianity (p. 72) ; in fact, it has
plagiarized and copied Christianity wholesale — the orthodox Buddhists
bitterly denounced the fraud, and complained that the new school “had
destroyed” Buddhism. Even foreign advocates of Buddhism acknowl¬
edge this, for they call the Mahayana or Modern Buddhism Mythical
Buddhism. This fact ought to be made more prominent if one is to get a
right conception of that gloomy faith. What men admire now as
Buddhism is really an imitation of Christianity, borrowed from Nes-
torianism.
We are glad that in more than one place the author shows not only
the utter insufficiency, but the falseness of non-Christian faiths. He says
that while recognizing the good elements in ethnic religions, “we feel we
must be on our guard against an overemphasis. There are elements of
truth in these religions, but the religions as such are not true. We must
protest against that excessive appreciation of heathen religions that al¬
most, and sometimes entirely, ignores that which makes them essentially
different from the Christian religion.” Taken as a whole the book is a
thoughtful one. It gives in brief compass a clear account of the Chinese
systems of belief, and is calculated to do much good.
Ventnor, N.J. Henry M. Woods.
Gereformeerde Homiletiek. Door Dr. T. Hoekstra. Wageningen, (Holl¬
and). Gebr. Zomer & Keuning’s Uitgeversmaatschappij. 1926. Pp.
472. FI. 12.75.
This book is an encyclopedic and fully documented treatise on homi¬
letics as developed by the theory and practice of the Calvinistic churches.
It consists of twenty-six sections divided into four heads. The introduc¬
tion comprises 145 pages that treat of the name and meaning of homi-
RECENT LITERATURE
689
letics, its place in the theological curriculum, its relation to rhetoric and
psychology, its history and divisions. Part I in 60 pages deals with the
principles of homiletics, and explains the meaning of the ministry or
service of the Word, the essential nature of this service, its chief con¬
tent, “the will of God for our salvation in Jesus Christ,” the official
character of this ministry, to whom this ministry is directed, its aim,
and by whom. Part II in 164 pages considers the material which the
preacher must use in his ministry of the Word. This is the entire Holy
Scripture as means of grace. The parts of Holy Scripture which the
preacher uses are his texts, and here Dr. Hoekstra advises the student
how to choose a text, and how to exegete it and apply it to the needs of
the congregation. Then follows a section on the divisions of the sermon,
and another on the different sorts of material that may be used, such as
the Bible histories, the parables, the catechism, etc. Part III, the con¬
cluding portion of the volume, in 82 pages, is devoted to the “form” of
preaching, by which is meant such matters as the structure of the ser¬
mon, the outline, language, style and delivery. The book is carefully
printed on non-glazed paper in large clear type, and in spite of its size
is very light and easy to hold.
An excellent method of testing any volume devoted to the theological
disciplines and intended for use as a text is to put to it a few of the
questions that naturally arise in our minds and find how it answers them.
Let us question Dr. Hoekstra’s treatise and certify to ourselves how
accurately and beautifully it develops in its historical continuity the
Calvinistic view' of the preacher’s art. What is the relation of the Holy
Scripture to preaching? The relation is of the most intimate kind. Where
the Word is, there works the Holy Spirit, opening the way into the
closed heart, making the human soul capable of receiving the truth, and
by means of the preached Word of God bringing into existence the most
glorious activities of regenerate life. This influence of the Holy Spirit
is not explicable as any conscious or unconscious part of man’s per¬
sonality. He is the creative cause of all that belongs to the new life in
Jesus Christ. How He does it, no one can say, that He does it, all Cal¬
vinists must believe (p. 193). What is the place of the preacher? He is
the official servant of the Word of God. In conformity with the Re¬
formed view of the principium cognoscendi, i.e. the Holy Scripture, this
service consists in the explanation and application of the truth of God
revealed for our salvation. Those who, like Schleiermacher and the
Modernists generally, reject this view of the principium, must arrive
logically at another view of preaching. As an artist represents his ideas
in his art-work, so the religious community objectifies in cultus what it
religiously experiences. Preaching is an element of cultus, and its subject
matter is not some “thus saith the Lord,” but a rhetorical representation
of more or less ideal religious or ethical experience (p. 157). What is
the Calvinist’s view of the sermon? Let Andreas Gerhard (15x1-1564),
whose name Latinized is Hyperius and who wrote the first book on
homiletics from the Reformed standpoint (De formandis concionibus
sacris seu de interpretatione sacrae scripturae populari, 1553), give the
690
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
answer. A sermon is a “popular” explanation of Scripture, i.e. in con¬
trast with the scientific exegesis that has its place in the schools and is
in accord with scientific aims, the sermon should be clear to all and
applicable practically to each life. The preacher and the secular orator
have many things in common. Both must deal with inventio, dispositio,
elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio ; both aim at the threefold end of public
speech, docere, delectare, flectere ; both must recognize the three divisions
of style, genus sublime, genus humile, genus mediocre. But in his search
for materials and in his aim, the preacher differs from the orator. In the
former his field is the Scripture, and in the latter his aim is the edifica¬
tion of his hearers in the grace of God (p. 150). Should the sermon be
read or spoken ? It should always be spoken, since reading is not in ac¬
cord with the words used for the proclamation of the Gospel nor with
the character of the ministry of the Word. Calvin, in a letter to Lord
Somerset, October 22, 1548, remarked that a good and apt minister of the
Word will pronounce, never read his sermon. Dr. Kuyper also affirmed
that it is a correct deduction from the nature of the proclamation of the
Gospel that it is not an essay, but an address ; therefore, not to be read
but spoken (p. 454). How far may a preacher appropriate the materials
of another? The Calvinist answer is that bare borrowing does not de¬
velop one’s own individual charism. He who cannot compose his own
sermons gives a testimonium paupertatis and is unfitted for the ministry
of the Word. Far better the humble and simple matter that one has him¬
self discovered by prayerful study and searching of the Scripture than
stolen sublimity and fictitious invention. In the former case one is a min¬
ister of the Word, in the latter one is an actor using words not his own
and simulating what he has not felt (p. 444). These questions and answers
might be indefinitely extended, but let these suffice to give an idea of the
rich material that is here presented to the student. Dr. Hoekstra’s volume
demonstrates that true progress in homiletics as in all other branches
of the theological encyclopedia consists neither in purblind adherence to
our paternal treasure nor in fickle loyalty to the “something newer” of
each passing day, but in the use of the ever fresh Providence of God
under the guidance of the eternal principles of His Word.
Lincoln University, Pa. George Johnson.
PERIODICAL LITERATURE
American Church Monthly, New York, July: J. G. H. Barry, Wine
and String Drink; William A. McClenthen, Basis of our Ceremonial
Development; George P. Christian, Inevitability of Viae Mediae. The
Same, August : C. H. Palmer, The Religion of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex ;
E. Sinclair Hertell, Medieval Friars; Louis Foley, Miracles of
Hume; A Plea for the Religious Life. The Same, September: Wilfrid E.
Anthony, Church Architecture ; Ross R. Calvin, In Praise of the Brevi¬
ary; George L. Richardson, Preaching that Penetrates; George H.
Richardson, Science and the Clergy.
RECENT LITERATURE
69I
American Journal of Philology, Baltimore, June: Tenney Frank,
Naevius and Free Speech; W. H. Kirk, Observations on the Indirect
Volitive in Latin; Clyde Phaar, The Testimony of Josephus to Chris¬
tianity; Samuel E. Bassett, The Single Combat between Hector and
Aias ; Edith F. Claflin, Nature of the Latin Passive in the Light of
Recent Discovery. The Same, September: Grace H. McCurdy, Queen
Eurydice and the Evidence for Woman-Power in Early Macedonia;
Max Radin, Freedom of Speech in Ancient Athens ; T. Callander, In¬
scriptions from Isauria; E. H. Sturtevant, Hittite Katta(n) and Re¬
lated Words; Harold H. Bender and Stephen J. Herben, English
Spick, Speck, Spitchcock, and Spike.
Anglican Theological Review, Lancaster, July: Frederick C. Grant,
The Outlook for Theology; F. W. Buckler, The Re-emergence of the
Arian Controversy ; F. J. Foakes-Jackson, Professor Moore’s Judaism ;
J. F. Springer, No Mistranslation in Luke 1:39; George L. Richardson,
The Jealousy of God.
Biblical Review, New York, July: J. Stuart Holden, Teaching of the
Christian Faith concerning Sin and its Remedy ; W. Graham Scroggie,
Diligence in the Cultivation of Christian Character ; H. H. Horne,
Jesus as a Philosopher; David R. Breed, Bible Institutes of the United
States ; George Brewer, The Christian Ministry.
Bibliotheca Sacra, St. Louis, July: John V. Brown, The Book in
Greek; Walter Asboe, The Kingdom of Heaven on the Roof of the
World; John E. Kuizenga, Roots of Religion; Robert C. Hallock,
The Innermost Thinking of Jesus, the Perfect Norm of Truth; Wil¬
liam S. Bishop, Sin, Righteousness and Life.
Canadian Journal of Religious Thought, Toronto, July-August: J.
Lewis Paton, A Niche without a Saint; Theophile J. Meek, Trials of
an Old Testament Translator; M. B. Davidson, Bernard Shaw, Theo¬
logian and Church Historian; A. J. Johnston, The Making of John
Wesley; John Line, The Johannine Doctrine of the Sacrament; Harold
C. Rowse, Tendencies in Modern Psychology; F. G. Vial, A Modern
Approach to Christian Doctrine.
Catholic Historical Review, Washington, July: James J. Walsh,
Catholic Background of the Discovery of America; M. Mildred Curley,
An Episode in the Conflict between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair.
Church Quarterly Review, London, July: Arthur C. Headlam, A
Defence of the New Prayer Book; F. E. Brightman, The New Prayer
Book Examined; J. E. MacRae, The Scottish Liturgy; H. N. Bate,
World Conference of Faith and Order; Arthur Chandler, Christian
Experience; Edgar Vincent, The Early Latitudinarians ; T. E. Robin¬
son, The Seventh Century Prophets ; Frederik Torm, Note on the
Synoptic Problem; J. H. Beibitz, Lockton’s Three Traditions in the
Gospels.
Congregational Quarterly, London, July: H. T. Andrews, Teaching of
Jesus concerning the Future Life; B. L. Manning, Some Character¬
istics of the Older Dissent; A. Le Marchant, The Church and the
Ministry; J. W. Poynter, The Reformation and Christian Unity; John
692 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Phillips, Have We a Gospel Big Enough for Today?; A. Landon,
Ambassadors of Immortality.
Crozer Quarterly, Philadelphia, July: Woodman Bradbury, Wanted:
a “New Humanism” ; Albert C. Lawson, The Gospel within the Gospel ;
Spenser B. Meeser, The Doctrine of Salvation ; John M. Moore, A
Formula for Church Union; Henry C. Vedder, Whither Bound in
Missions?
Expository Times, Edinburgh, July: J. O. F. Murray, Yhe Messiah-
ship of Jesus — iii. Evidence of St. John; H. Wheeler Robinson, Pres¬
ent-Day Faiths — The Baptists; Adam C. Welch, Psalm 81: a Sidelight
into the Religion of North Israel. The Same, August: A. E. Garvie,
Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Archibald Main, Present-Day Faiths —
Presbyterianism; P. J. Beveridge, Doctrine of Atonement. The Same,
September : Hermann Gunkel, The ‘Historical Movement’ in the Study
of Religion ; A. H. McNeile, The Holy Spirit in the Individual ; Camp¬
bell N. Moody, Spirit Power in Later Judaism and in the New Testa¬
ment.
Harvard Theological Review, Cambridge, July: Martin Dibelius,
Structure and Literary Character of the Gospels; Campbell Bonner,
Traces of Thaumaturgic Technique in the Miracles.
Homiletic Review, New York, July: Worth M. Tiipy, The Simplified
Chancel; C. A. Beckwith, Fifth Century Orthodoxy; John E. Mac-
Fadyen, The Mid-Week Prayer Meeting; William L. Stidger, The New
Era in Church Bulletins. The Same, August: The New Church of Scot¬
land Moderator — Norman Maclean ; William J. Mutch, Construing the
World Spiritually; In the Physician’s Place; W. H. Raney, America’s
Oldest Manuscript ; Fred Smith, The Preaching that Counts ; Preach¬
ing in Medieval England; William B. Forbush, Summer Outdoor
Services. The Same, September: The Divinity of Toil; Robert C.
Francis, One Minister’s Solution for Sunday Evening ; Edith L. Wynn,
What the Church Means to me ; Charles M. Adams, When does an
Illustration Illustrate?; Leslie F. Duncan, Writing Church News.
Jewish Quarterly Review, Philadelphia, July: Solomon L. Skoss,
Arabic Commentary of ’Ali Ben Suleiman the Karaite on the Book of
Genesis; Joshua Finkel, An Eleventh Century Source for the History
of Jewish Scientists in Mohammedan Countries; Israel H. Levinthal,
Survey of Recent Works on Jewish Jurisprudence.
Journal of Negro History, Washington, July: Spring Conference of
the Association to Study Negro Life and History; L. P. Jackson, Free
Negroes of Petersburg, Virginia.
Journal of Religion, Chicago, July: Gerald B. Smith, An Overlooked
Factor in the Adjustment between Religion and Science; Morton S.
Enslin, Paul and Gamaliel; Shailer Mathews, Development of Social
Christianity in America during the past Twenty-five Years; R. P. Rider,
Pioneer Period of Baptist History in Missouri; William C. Graham,
The Modern Controversy about Deuteronomy ; Daniel C. Holtom, State
Cult of Modern Japan.
Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford, July: M. R. James, The Yen-
RECENT LITERATURE
693
ice Extracts from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; C. H.
Turner, Notes critical and excgetical on the Second Gospel, viii; H. N.
Bate, The ‘shorter text’ of Luke 22: 15-20; S. A. Cooke, Theophanies of
Gideon and Manoah; H. J. Rose, St. Augustine as a forerunner of
Medieval Hymnology; F. C. Burkitt, Jesus and the ‘Pharisees’; J. G.
Sikes, Conflict of Abailard and St. Bernard; M. Frost, Te Deum
Laudamus; F. C. Burkitt, Yahweh or Yahoh.
London Quarterly Review, London, July: C. Ryder Smith, Admis¬
sion of Women to the Christian Ministry; Arthur E. Bateman, Spir¬
itual Genius of William Blake; Henry Bett, Resurrection of the Body:
Edward Thompson, Prohibition of Widow-Burning in British India;
Wilbert F. Howard, Study of the New Testament: Retrospect and
Prospect; John Telford, Dean Hutton on John Wesley.
Lutheran Church Review, Philadelphia, July: Charles M. Jacobs,
Inaugural Address ; Carl H. Kraeling, The Odes of Solomon and their
Significance for the New Testament; Henry Offermann, Studies in
Matthew : Practice of Religion ; G. H. Bechtold, Inner Mission Work
in the American Church.
Lutheran Quarterly, Gettysburg, September: J. A. W. Haas, The
Nature of the Church; Alfred C. Garrett, The Nature of the Church;
J. M. M. Gray, The Unity of Christendom and the Relation thereto of
the Existing Churches; George W. Richards, The Ministry and the
Sacraments ; Walter J. Hogue, The Church’s Common Confession of
Faith ; T. B. Stork, As a Layman Sees if : the Evolution of Religion ;
L. A. Vigness, Is Continued Preservation of Denominational Identities
Justifiable?; Andreas Helland, The Lutheran Free Church; W. Arndt,
What the Missouri Synod Stands for.
Missionary Review of the World, New York, July: George E. Tilsley,
Dan Crawford and His Work ; Anna B. Stewart, Intimate Glimpses of
a West Virginia School ; Stanley High, Can we Dispense with Foreign
Missions?; Webster E. Browning, Trekking from Canada to Paraguay;
W. H. Oldfield, The Bible through Chinese Eyes; A. T. Robertson, St.
Paul’s Missionary Statesmanship; E. M. Wherry, Why it is Difficult
to lead Moslems to Christ; Robert E. Speer, China and the Christian
Church. The Same, August: John McDowell, Essential Character of
the Christian Message; Helen B. Montgomery, Interest in Foreign
Missions; A Chinese Message to Missionaries; Chinese Christians in the
Present Crisis; J. C. R. Ewing, Why a Brahmin Became a Christian;
E. M. Wherry, Why it is Difficult to Lead Moslems to Christ, ii. The
Same, September: Jonathan Goforth, Outlook for Christianity in
China; Harvey Brokaw, Llnfinished Task in Japan; E. C. Hennigar,
Battle for Purity in Japan; Samuel M. Zwemer, What Creed do Mis¬
sionaries Need?
Monist, Chicago, July: Eugenio Rignano, Finalism of Psychical Pro¬
cesses; Coriolano ALBERiNr, Contemporary Philosophic Tendencies in
South America; Arthur E. Murphy, Alexander’s Metaphysic of Space-
Time, i; G. E. C. Catlin, Is Politics a Branch of Ethics; A. K. Sharma^
Psychological Basis of Autosuggestion.
694
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Moslem World, New York, July: Raymund Lull's “Tree of Love”;
R. C. Hutchison, Ministry of Unrequited Love; H. French Ridley,
Through the Gobi Desert; An Epoch Making Book in Turkey; John
Walker, Who is Idris ? ; G. Everard Dobson, The Opium Habit in
Persia; J. Ali Bakhsh, An Ahmadiya Conference; Abraham Moor-
hatch, Islam for Christ.
New Church Life, Lancaster, July: N. D. Pendleton, The First Res¬
urrection; Robert Hindmarsh, Institution of the Ministry of the New
Church. The Same, August: Stanley E. Parker, China and Great Tar¬
tary; Gutzlaff, The Mantchoos and their Conquest; C. T. Odhner,
Greater and Lesser Tartary; H. G. de Geymuller, Catholic Prohibition
of Bible-reading. The Same, September: Wilfred D. Pike, The Science
or Law of Correspondences ; R. J. Tilson, The New Church and the Old ;
Hugo Lj. Odhner, Paranoia versus Revelation.
Open Court, Chicago, July: Henry Lanz, Logic of Emotions; Victor
S. Yarros, “Meaning of Meaning” — Words and Ideas; Axel Lunde-
berg, Sweden’s Contribution to Philosophy. The Same, August: Howard
W. Outerbridge, Foundations of the Early Buddhist Scriptures; Victor
S. Yarros, Ethics — with or without Religion; J. V. Nash, Some Seven¬
teenth Century Cosmic Speculations ; Birger R. Headstrom, Scientism
of Goethe; Daljit S. Sadharia, Future Possibilities of Buddhism;
Curtis W. Reese, Theism Distinguished from Other Theories of God.
The Same, September: Maximilian Rudwin, The Supernatural of
George Sand; Howard W. Outerbridge, Historicity of Sakyamuni; A.
Kampmeier, The Actual History of Judaism and Christianity in a
Nutshell; Amos L. Dushaw, Soul of Islam; W. P. McGehee, Primi¬
tive Remainders in Religion.
Review and Expositor, Louisville, July: James Cannon, iii, Trans¬
migration and Karma in Hinduism ; H. T. Flowers, Christ’s Doctrine
of God; L. E. Barton, Gospel of the Resurrection; Sally N. Roach,
Power of His Resurrection; John A. Heid, Intolerance in Relation to
Radicalism; W. E. Davidson, On the Atonement; John Moncure, Lost
Ten Tribes of Israel; William H. Williams, Can the Seminary Justify
her Existence?
Yale Review, New Haven, July: Gabriel Hanotaux, The Recovery of
France; Edwin D. Harvey, Resurgent China; Robert M. Hutchins,
The Law and the Psychologists; Silas Bent, Two Kinds of News;
William B. Munro, Modem Science and Politics; Howell Cheney,
Manufacturing as a Profession.
Biblica, Roma, Julio: M. J. Gruenthaner, Chaldeans or Macedon¬
ians? a recent theory on the Prophecy of Habakkuk; J. G. Fonseca,
SiadrjKr) Foedus an testamentum? ; J. Sonnen, Landwirtschaftliches vom
See Genesareth; P. Jouon, Aba “vouloir” en hebreu, “ne pas vouloir”
en arabe ; H. Wiesmann, Die Textgestalt des 5 Kapitels der Klagelieder;
A. Deimel, Amrapheel, rex Sennar . . . Thadal, rex gentium.
Bilychnis, Roma, Giugno : V. Solovjov, La Risurrezione di Cristo ; A.
V. Muller, Jesuitica. The Same, Luglio: M. Maresca, La funzione della
religione nell’economia dello spirito ; C. Formichi, II Nirvana non e il
nulla; M. Vinciguerra, II cantrasto tra Wirth e Marx nel centro catto-
RECENT LITERATURE
695
lico tedesco. The Same, Ag.-Sett. : E. Lo Gatto, L’idea filosofico-religiosa
russa da Skovoroda a Solovjou; F. A. Ferrari, Idealismo implicito nel
Logos degli stoici; P. Chiminelli, Studi sulla Riforma religiosa.
Ciencia Tomista, Madrid, Julio-Agosto : Alberto Colunga, Adan en el
Paraiso; Vicente Beltran de Heredia, La herencia literaria del maes¬
tro fray Francisco de Vitoria. The Same, Septiembre-Octubre : Venan-
cio D. Carro, El maestro fray Pedro de Soto; Luis Getino, Nuevas
poesias de fray Luis de Leon ; Vicente Beltran de Heredia, La herencia
literaria del Maestro fray Francisco de Vitoria (conclusion).
Estudis Franciscans, Barcelona, Juliol: Miquel d'Esplugues, Una
bibliotheca de grans filosofis; II de fonse de Vuippens, Darius I, le
Nabuchodonosor du livre de Judith; Romualdo Bizzarri, Della falsa
originalita ; ossia arte, religione e filosofia ; Hubert Klug, Joannia Duns
Scotus doctrina de sacrificio.
Etudes Theologiques et Religieuses, Montpellier, Juillet: Alexandre
Westphal, La discipline intellectuelle et l’enseignement religieux dans
nos Eglises ; Louis Dallierf., La Realite de l’Eglise ; H. Clavier, Les
Beatitudes et la cure d’ames contemporaine.
Foi et Vie, Paris, Juillet: Paul Doumergue, “L’heure tranquille”;
Pierre Chazel, Les Idees et les Livres: Les cahiers de Sainte-Beuve;
Henri Lauga, Samuel ou l’apprenti prophete. The Same, Aout : Paul
Doumergue, Le sang des humbles; G. Bouttier, L’Exercise de la foi:
“Je crois en Jesus Christ”; G. Debu, Vers l’Union des Eglises. The Same,
Septembre: Paul Doumergue, Sur un jour de pluie; Henri Monnier,
L’oeuvre du pastor Rambaud ; Caperdoque, Les grands romantiques et le
christianisme : Lamartine, Hugo, Musset.
Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift, Aalten, Juli: J. Ridderbos,
Algemeen karakter van Hosea’s zondeprediking ; Verlags van de i6«
Algemeene Vergadering der vereeniging van Predikanten ; van de Gere-
formeerde Kerken in Nederland. The Same, Aug.: Recensien. The Same,
Sept.: H. W. Van der Vaart Smit, De Scheppingsweek.
Kiriath Sepher, Jerusalem, September: J. N. Epfstein, Rabbi Jom
Tow Ben Abraham’s Glosses to “Sabbath”; B. Dinaburg, Letters of S. J.
Rapaport.
Logos, Napoli, Gennaio-Giugno : G. Carlotti, II Concetto della Storia
della filosofia ; P. Reginaldo Fei, Che Cosa e l’anima ; L. Bandini, Bene,
virtu e “senso morale” nello Shaftesbury ; A. Baratono, II pensiero come
attivita storicaj-A. Mochi, Le basi, i-limiti e il valore della psicologia
scientifica.
Nieuwe Theologische Studien, Wageningen, Stptember : A. Klinken-
berg, De Handelingen der Apostelen ; Th. L. W. van Ravesteijn, Nieuwe
opgravingen in Palestina.
N ouvelle Revue Theologique, Paris, Septembre-Octobre : Abb£ Groult,
Saint Jean de la Croix, docteur de l’figlise; P. Demade, Note de medecine
pastorale — la therapeutique des passions ; Actes du Saint-Siege.
Onder Eigen Vaandel, Wageningen, Juli: J. Willemze, Een groot
gevaar; Tn. L. Haitjema, Persoonlijk Geloof en Kerk; P. J. Kromsigt,
6g6 THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Het kerkbegrip van Calvin ; Th. L. Haitjema, Plaatselijke en Algemeene
Kerk; A. B. te Winkel, Kroniek.
Recherches de Science Religieuse, Paris, Juin-Aout: Fernand de
Lanversin, Esquisse d’une synthese du sacrifice; Paul Jouon, Quelques
aramaismes sous-jacents au grec des Evangiles; Paul Dudon, Bossuet
a-t-il viole le secret d’une confession de Fenelon?
Revue d’Ascetique et de Mystique, Toulouse, Juillet: J. de Guibert,
L’appel a la contemplation infuse: Tradition et Opinions; A. Wilmart,
Les Meditations vii et viii attributes a Saint Anselme ; L. E. Rabussier,
Quelques notes sur le “Mariage Spirituel” ; P. Dudon, La Gnose de
Clement d’Alexandrie interpretee par Fenelon.
Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiatique, Louvain, Juillet: P. Galtier, Le ver¬
itable edit de Calliste ; G. Mollat, Episodes du siege du palais des papes
au temps de Benoit xiii; M. Dubruel, Les Congregations des affaires de
France sous Innocent xi.
Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie religieuses, Strasbourg, Mai-Juin:
A. Causse, Quelques remarques sur l’ideal ebionitique dans les Testa¬
ments des douze patriarches ; Maurice Goguel, Jesus et la tradition relig¬
ieuses de son peuple; Anton Fridrichsen, “Accomplir toute justice; Ch.
Guignebert, Contribution a l’etude de l’experience chez Paul. The Some,
Juillet-Aout : Adolphe Lods, La chute des anges; E. Lohmeyer, L’idee
du martyre dans le Judaisme et dans Christianisme primitif ; T. Ziel¬
inski, La morale chretinne troiseme morale de l’antiquite.
Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques, Paris, Juillet:
A. Lemonnyer, L’Esprit-Saint Paraclet; G. Lacombe, Les doctrines des
Passagiens d’apres Prevostin.
Scholastik, Freiburg, 2:3: Joh. B. Umberg, Absolutionspflicht und
altchristliche Bussdisziplin ; Hermann Lange, Alois v. Schmid und die
vatikanische Lehre vom Glaubensabfall ; Emmerich Raitz, Bedeutung,
Drsprung und sein Gefiihle.
Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie, 51 : 5: A. Landgraf, Grundlagen
fur ein Verstandnis der Busslehre der Friih — und Hochscholastik ; C. A.
Kneller, Um das Vatikanum ; L. Feutscher, Die naturlich Gotteser-
kenntnis bei Tertullian. The Same, 51 : 3: J. Stufler, Ergebnis der Kon-
troverse uber die thomistische Konlcurslehre ; F. Schlagenhaufen, Der
geistige Charakter der jiidischen “Reichs” — Erwartung.
Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte , Gotha, 46 : 1 : E. Barnikol, Bruno
Bauers Kamp gegen Religion und Christentum und die Spaltung der
vormarzlichen preussischen Opposition ; G. Peradse, Die Anfange des
Monchtums in Georgien ; I. Pusino, Der Einfluss Picos auf Erasmus;
K. Bauer, Symbolik und Realprasenz in der Abendmahlsanschauung
Zwinglis bis 1525. The Same, 46:2: Paul Kalkoff, Die Stellung der
deutschen Humanisten zur Reformation; P. M. Baumgarten, Berner -
kungen zu v. Pastors Papstgeschichte 10; E. Kochs, Das Kriegsproblem
in der spiritualistischen Gesamtanschauung Christian Hohburgs.
Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, Tubingen, 8:4: Th. Haering,
Zur Frage der Heilsgewissheit ; Karl Thieme, Zur Trinitatsfrage;
Friedrich Traub, Zur Interpretation Ritschls ; Theophile Steinmann,
Systematische aus der historischen Theologie.
The Princeton
Theological
Review
EDITED FOR THE
FACULTY
J. Ross Stevenson
Wm. Brenton Greene, Jr.
Robert Dick Wilson
Charles R. Erdman
J. Ritchie Smith
J. Gresham Machen
Finley D. Jenkins
Francis L. Patton
Geerhardus Vos
William P. Armstrong
Frederick W. Loetscher
Caspar Wistar Hodge
Oswald T. Allis .
Joseph H. Dulles
by
Oswald T. Allis
VOLUME XXV
192,7
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
ARTICLES
The Names of God in the Psalms. By R. D. Wilson . i
Does the Behaviorist Have a Mind? By Wm. Hallock Johnson. . . 40
Holy Scriptures and Imaginal Contexts. By George Johnson. ... 59
Christ in the Light of Eschatology. By L. Berkhof . 83
On the Hebrew of Daniel. By R. D. Wilson . 177
Hegelianism and Theism. By Clarence Bouma . 200
The Davidic Dynasty. By James Oscar Boyd . 215
The Present Status and Outlook of Protestantism in Europe.
By Sylvester W. Beach . 240
The Blessing of Abraham. By Oswald T. Allis . 263
Evidence in Hebrew Diction for the Dates of Documents. By
R. D. Wilson . 353
The Virgin Birth of Our Lord. By W. H. Guiton . 389
The Davidic Covenant: The Oracle. By James Oscar Boyd . 417
The Second Coming of Christ in the Thessalonian Epistles^
By Edgar M. Wilson . 444
The Integrity of the Lucan Narrative of the Annunciation.
By J. Gresham Machen . 529
Echoes of the Covenant with David. By James Oscar Boyd . 587
Popular Protest and Revolt against Papal Finance in England
from 1226 to 1258. By Oscar A. Marti . 610
The Sign of the Prophet Jonah and its Modern Confirmations.
By Ambrose John Wilson . 630
Is Christianity Responsible for China’s Troubles? By Courtenay
Hughes Fenn . 664
iii
NOTES AND NOTICES
Inspiration and Islam. By H. E. Anderson . 103
The Founding of the Second Temple. By W. E. Hogg . 457
BOOKS REVIEWED
Allen, F. E., Evolution in the Balances . 31 1
Arnett, E. A., Psychology for Bible Teachers . 169
Bell, B. I., Postmodernism and Other Essays . 166
Berg, L. S., N ontogenesis, or Evolution Determined by Law . 119
Bishop, W. S., The Theology of Personality . 683
Boreham, F. W., The Crystal Pointers . 168
Brandes, G., Jesus a Myth . 314
Brunner, E., Erlebnis, Erkenntnis und Glaube . 334
Budden, C. W., and Hastings, E., The Local Colour of the Bible,
Vol. Ill . 345
Budge, E. A. W., Babylonian Life and History . 325
Burrell, D. J., Life and Letters of St. Paul . 156
Burrell, D. J., The Golden Parable . 156
Burton, E. D., A Short Introduction to the Gospels . 321
Churchward, A., The Origin and Evolution of Religion . 464
Clarke, J. E., IV hat is a Christian ? . 498
Close, U., The Revolt of Asia . 510
Coffin, H. S., The Portraits of Jesus Christ in the New Testament 161
Cooke, R. J., Did Paul Know of the Virgin Birthf . 519
Darms, J. M. G., With Christ Through Lent . 341
De Korne, J. C., Chinese Altars to the Unknown God . i... 687
De Wulf, M., History of Mediaeval Philosophy . 299
Doumergue, E., Jean Calvin, Vol. VI . 492
Easton, B. S., The Gospel According to St. Luke . 130
Gadd, C. J., A Sumerian Reading Book . 346
Gaebelein, A. C., The Angels of God . 135
Gaebelein, A. C., The Gospel of John . 134
Gaebelein, A. C., The Healing Question . 135
Gaebelein, A. C., The Holy Spirit . 135
Gaebelein, A. C., The Return of the Lord . 135
IV
BOOKS REVIEWED V
Gager, C. S., The Relation between Science and Theology . 114
Gardner-Smith, P., The Narratives of the Resurrection — A Crit¬
ical Study . 667
Gillie, R. C., and Reid, J., The Bible for Youth . 125
Grose, G. R., The New Soul in China . 512
Guiton, W. H., Introduction a la Bible . 122
Haldane, Viscount, The Pathway to Reality . 466
Hamilton, F. E., The Basis of Christian Faith . 664
Herbert, C., Twenty-five Years as Bishop of London . 157
Hering, J., Phenomenologie et Philosophie religieuse . 108
Herrmann, W., Systematic Theology (Dogmatik) . 333
Hickman, F. S., Introduction to the Psychology of Religion . 665
Hodges, J. S., George Hodges . 491
Hugel, F. von, Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion 462
Inge, W. R., Lay Thoughts of a Dean . 341
Ingram, A. F. W., The Sword of Goliath . 157
Johnson, W. H., Can the Christian Now Believe in Evolution? . . 112
Kennedy, G. A. S., The Sorrows of God . 344
Keyser, L. S., A System of Natural Theism . 502
Klausner, J., Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times and Teaching . . 317
Lodge, O., Evolution and Creation . 309
Loewe, H., Catalogue of Wright Collection of MSS. in the Hebrew
Character . 484
Macalister, R. A. S., A Century of Excavation in Palestine . 162
Martindale, C. O., What It Means to Be Christian . 682
Matthews, W. R., God and Evolution . 115
McFadyen, J. E., Key to Davidson’s Revised Hebrey Grammar _ 141
Merrifield, F., Modern Religious Verse and Prose. An Anthology 68 7
Moffatt, J., The Holy Bible — A New Translation . 484
Morgan, W., The Nature and Right of Religion . 505
Moulton, R. G., The Modern Reader’s Bible for Schools — The Old
Testament . 138
Murdock, V., Constantinople the Challenge of the Centuries . 513
Murry, J. M., The Life of Jesus . 320
Newton, J. F., The Truth and the Life . 158
Oman, J., Grace and Personality . 149
Otto, R., West-Ostliche Mystik . 477
Pasma, H. K., God’s Picked Young Men . 160
Paterson, W. P., The Nature of Religion . 467
Pieters, A., The Facts and Mysteries of the Christian Faith . 333
Vi BOOKS REVIEWED
Ramsay, F. P., The Virgin Birth . 519
Ramsay, W. M., Asianic Elements in Greek Civilisation . 671
Rhinelander, P. M., Think Out Your Faith . 343
Rice, W. N., Science and Religion . . 117
Simpson, D. C., Ed., The Psalmists . 322
Simpson, D. C., Pentateuchal Criticism . 479
Slotemaker de Bruine, N. A. C., Eschatologie en Historic . 509
Socin, A., Arabic Grammar . 483
Soper, E. D., W hat May I Believe ? . 503
Squires, W. A., Psychological Foundations of Religious Education 340
Stebbins, G. G, George C. Stebbins: Reminiscences and Gospel
Hymn Stories . 685
Stewart, A., A Plea for a Positive Evangel . 144
Stidger, W. L., Finding God in Books . 169
Stone, D., The Faith of an English Catholic . 502
Taylor, C. F., Everlasting Salvation . 168
Taylor, Mrs. H., Borden of Yale ’09 . 514
The Sacred Scriptures, Concordant Version . 680
Verde, M., New Realism in the Light of Scholasticism . in
Vrooman, W. A., Progressive Christianity . 338
Wardle, W. L., Israel and Babylon . 674
Whitehead, A. N., Religion in the Making . 336
Will, R., Le Culte . 303
Williams, W. A., The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved 313
Williams, W. W., and Millis, B. V. R., eds., Select Treatises of
S. Bernard of Clairvaux . 683
Workman, H. B., John Wyclif: A Study of the English Mediaeval
Church . 328
Yakdley, T. H., Was Christ Really Born of a Virgin ? . 519
Yates, K. M., A Beginner’s Grammar of the Hebrew Old Testa¬
ment . 324
CONTRIBUTORS
Allis, O. T., 122-130, 138-144 162-166, 263-298, 324-328, 346-347, 479-
490, 674-682.
Anderson, H. E., 103-107.
Berk hof, L., 83-102.
Beach, S. W., 158-160, 240-262.
Bouma, C., 200-214, 464-476.
Boyd, J. O., 215-239, 417-443, 587-609.
Clark, D. S., 149-156, 338-340, 683-685.
Corum, J. M., Jr., 160- 161.
Craig, S. G., 157-158, 161-162, 166-168.
Downs, F. S., 514-518.
Erdman, C. R., 341.
Fenn, C. H., 643-663.
Gage, D. S., 108-111, 299-309, 462-464.
Guiton, W. H., 389-416.
Hamilton, F. E., 114-119, 309-314.
Hodge, C. W., 112-114, 144-149, 333-334, 498-505, 682.
Hogg, W. E., 457-461.
Hutchinson, S. N., 156-157.
Jenkins, F. D., 505-509.
Johnson, G., 59-82, m-112, 169-170, 334-336, 34«, 464-465, 477-478, 664-
666, 683, 687.
Johnson, W. H., 40-58.
Loetscher, F. W., 492-498.
Machen, J. G., 529-586.
Mackay, J. R., 130- 134, 314-320, 667-674.
Marti, O. A., 610-629.
McIntyre, D. M., 322-324.
Montgomery, R., 168-169.
Paist, B. F., 341-345, 491-492, 513-514, 685-686.
Price, G. M., 1 19-122.
Reincke, E. J., 134-137, 519-522.
Thomson, S. H., 328-333.
Van Til, C., 336-338.
Welmers, T. E., 321-322, 345-346.
Wilson, A. J., 630-642.
Wilson, E. M., 444-456.
Wilson, R. D., 1-39, 177-199, 353-388.
Woods, H. M., 510-513, 687-688.
Articles are indicated in black-faced type; Notes and Notices in italics.
vii
THE WORK OF THE PASTOR
By Charles R. Erdman, D.D., LL.D. The Westminster Press,
Philadelphia. 1924, 8vo, pp. vii. 257.
“This volume is intended to serve as a handbook to pastors
and as a textbook for students of theology. It should be found
helpful, however, to many others who are concerned with the
organization and activities of the Christian Church. . . . Large
portions of the last five chapters have been furnished by other
writers, who are recognized as specially trained and qualified
for their tasks.”
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE GOSPELS
By J. Ritchie Smith, D.D., Professor of Homiletics in Prince¬
ton Theological Seminary. Author of “The Teaching of
the Gospel of John”; “The Wall and the Gates.” New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
“Throughout the entire volume one finds unmistakable evi¬
dences of broad and accurate scholarship, a courageous facing
of difficulties and objections and a determination to think things
through, a catholicity of spirit even where the widest differences
of convictions enter, and a deep and vital devotion to Jesus
Christ. It is with an inexpressible satisfaction one rises from
the reading of such a work.” — The Presbyterian.
WHAT IS FAITH?
By J. Gresham Machen, D.D. New York : The Macmillan
Company, Pp. 263. London : Hodder & Stoughton.
“If we had the resources we should provide a copy to every
minister and lay preacher in the British Isles” — The British
Weekly.
“Professor Machen has written a strong and courageous
book . . — Christian World (London).
CHRISTIANITY AND LIBERALISM
By J. Gresham Machen, D.D. New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1923.
“This is a book that should be read by every thinking man,
whether he calls himself a conservative or a liberal. While evi¬
dently the product of a thorough scholar, it is written through¬
out in simple, non-technical words.” S. G. Craig in The Presby¬
terian.
The Selected Writings
of
BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE
WARFIELD
Late Professor of Theology in Princeton
Theological Seminary
IN TEN VOLUMES
At the time of his death in 1921, the late Dr. Benjamin Breck¬
inridge Warfield was the leading Calvinistic theologian in the
English speaking world. An Editorial Committee proposes to
publish through the Oxford University Press, in a series of vol¬
umes, Dr. Warfield’s contribution to theological thought by re¬
printing the important articles which he contributed to the vari¬
ous Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedias and to the theological
reviews, especially The Princeton Theological Review.
The first volume, entitled Revelation and, Inspiration t contains
two articles on the Idea of Revelation, and a number of exegeti-
cal and critical articles on the Biblical idea of Inspiration and
the grounds of belief in the plenary inspiration of Scripture.
The second volume will contain Dr. Warfield’s major articles
on several Biblical doctrines, such as The Trinity, Predestina¬
tion, Faith, The Person of Christ, etc.
The third volume will comprise the historico-critical articles
on the Person and Work of Christ.
Volumes four, five and six will contain articles on Historical
Theology. They will include the articles on Augustine, Calvin,
and The Westmnister Confession. These articles are authori¬
tative on their respective subjects.
The seventh and eighth volumes will contain the articles on
Perfectionism.
There will be a ninth volume of miscellaneous articles and a
tenth volume containing the most important of Dr. Warfield’s
book reviews.
Volume I, now ready, may be ordered through your book¬
seller, or direct from the publisher. It is bound in cloth, 8vo
(9^x614), pp. xiii-t-456, price, $3.00.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
AMERICAN BRANCH NEW YORK
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